Gender differences in vocal doses among occupational voice users: a systematic review of literature and meta-analysis

Atará-Piraquive, Ángela Patricia; Cutiva, Lady Catherine Cantor

doi:10.1080/14015439.2021.1873415

Cited by 13 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…Gender influences faith leaders’ vocal health experiences, with female faith leaders more likely to report experiencing voice symptoms and problems (Hagelberg & Simberg, 2015 ). This mirrors broader research assertions that females experience higher vocal loads associated with differences in laryngeal structures, body functioning, psychosocial factors, life-domain functioning and that females more readily engage in help-seeking (Atará-Piraquive & Cantor-Cutiva, 2021 ; dos Santos et al, 2019 ; Hunter et al, 2011 ; Lyberg-Åhlander et al, 2019 ).…”

Section: Scoping Review Findingssupporting

confidence: 68%

Systems Approaches to Occupational Vocal Health: Considerations for Community Faith Leaders

Buckley

Carey

2021

J Relig Health

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Systems thinking approaches can benefit the occupational vocal health of vocally reliant workers. This paper explores community faith leaders as an example of a highly vocally reliant occupation, who may benefit from systems thinking being used to support their vocal occupational health and safety. A scoping review of the current literature regarding faith leaders’ occupational voice use and vocal health is detailed, including recognised occupational hazards. This article then discusses the unique and potential use of systems thinking for facilitating faith leaders’ vocal occupational health and safety. Rather than using a solely clinical perspective, the sociotechnical systems approach and the biopsychosocial–spiritual approach are noted as particularly pertinent for this occupational group.

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Section: Scoping Review Findingssupporting

confidence: 68%

Systems Approaches to Occupational Vocal Health: Considerations for Community Faith Leaders

Buckley

Carey

2021

J Relig Health

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“…The participants were asked to read a text aloud in a quiet and a noisy condition. The voice was recorded using a voice dosimeter, which can provide an authentic picture of vocal demand responses [ 59 ]. In contrast to laboratory situations, this study was performed in a semi-controlled real situation with a live audience and voice changes were investigated.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Vocal Behavior of Teachers Reading with Raised Voice in a Noisy Environment

Nusseck

Immerz

Richter

et al. 2022

IJERPH

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(1) Objective: Teaching is a particularly voice-demanding occupation. Voice training provided during teachers’ education is often insufficient and thus teachers are at risk of developing voice disorders. Vocal demands during teaching are not only characterized by speaking for long durations but also by speaking in noisy environments. This provokes the so-called Lombard effect, which intuitively leads to an increase in voice intensity, pitch and phonation time in laboratory studies. However, this effect has not been thoroughly investigated in realistic teaching scenarios. (2) Methods: This study thus examined how 13 experienced, but vocally untrained, teachers behaved when reading in a noisy compared to quiet background environment. The quiet and noisy conditions were provided by a live audience either listening quietly or making noise by talking to each other. By using a portable voice accumulator, the fundamental frequency, sound pressure level of the voice and the noise as well as the phonation time were recorded in both conditions. (3) Results: The results showed that the teachers mainly responded according to the Lombard effect. In addition, analysis of phonation time revealed that they failed to increase inhalation time and appeared to lose articulation through the shortening of voiceless consonants in the noisy condition. (4) Conclusion: The teachers demonstrated vocally demanding behavior when speaking in the noisy condition, which can lead to vocal fatigue and cause dysphonia. The findings underline the necessity for specific voice training in teachers’ education, and the content of such training is discussed in light of the results.

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“…Several vocal dose metrics such as distance dose (Dd), cycle dose, and time dose were successfully derived from NSA signals by our group and others [11,[24][25][26][27]. However, inconclusive literature suggested that these metrics could be gender dependent, which may implicate the need for creating gender-specific vocal safety limits [28]. An investigation on the quantitative relationship between vocal doses and NSA-derived acoustic metrics in both females and males is thus pivotal to validate this critical question.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Wearable Neck Surface Accelerometers for Occupational Vocal Health Monitoring: Instrument and Analysis Validation Study

Lei¹,

Martignetti²,

Ridgway³

et al. 2022

JMIR Form Res

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Background Neck surface accelerometer (NSA) wearable devices have been developed for voice and upper airway health monitoring. As opposed to acoustic sounds, NSA senses mechanical vibrations propagated from the vocal tract to neck skin, which are indicative of a person’s voice and airway conditions. NSA signals do not carry identifiable speech information and a speaker’s privacy is thus protected, which is important and necessary for continuous wearable monitoring. Our device was already tested for its durable endurance and signal processing algorithms in controlled laboratory conditions. Objective This study aims to further evaluate both instrument and analysis validity in a group of occupational vocal users, namely, voice actors, who use their voices extensively at work in an ecologically valid setting. Methods A total of 16 professional voice actors (age range 21-50 years; 11 females and 5 males) participated in this study. All participants were mounted with an NSA on their sternal notches during the voice acting and voice assessment sessions. The voice acting session was 4-hour long, directed by a voice director in a professional sound studio. Voice assessment sessions were conducted before, during, and 48 hours after the acting session. The assessment included phonation tasks of passage reading, sustained vowels, maximum vowel phonation, and pitch glides. Clinical acoustic metrics (eg, fundamental frequency, cepstral measures) and a vocal dose measure (ie, accumulated distance dose from acting) were computed from NSA signals. A commonly used online questionnaire (Self-Administered Voice Rating questionnaire) was also implemented to track participants’ perception of vocal fatigue. Results The NSA wearables stayed in place for all participants despite active body movements during the acting. The ensued body noise did not interfere with the NSA signal quality. All planned acoustic metrics were successfully derived from NSA signals and their numerical values were comparable with literature data. For a 4-hour long voice acting, the averaged distance dose was about 8354 m with no gender differences. Participants perceived vocal fatigue as early as 2 hours after the start of voice acting, with recovery 24-48 hours after the acting session. Among all acoustic metrics across phonation tasks, cepstral peak prominence and spectral tilt from the passage reading most closely mirrored trends in perceived fatigue. Conclusions The ecological validity of an in-house NSA wearable was vetted in a workplace setting. One key application of this wearable is to prompt occupational voice users when their vocal safety limits are reached for duly protection. Signal processing algorithms can thus be further developed for near real-time estimation of clinically relevant metrics, such as accumulated distance dose, cepstral peak prominence, and spectral tilt. This functionality will enable continuous self-awareness of vocal behavior and protection of vocal safety in occupational voice users.

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Gender differences in vocal doses among occupational voice users: a systematic review of literature and meta-analysis

Cited by 13 publications

References 46 publications

Systems Approaches to Occupational Vocal Health: Considerations for Community Faith Leaders

Systems Approaches to Occupational Vocal Health: Considerations for Community Faith Leaders

Vocal Behavior of Teachers Reading with Raised Voice in a Noisy Environment

Wearable Neck Surface Accelerometers for Occupational Vocal Health Monitoring: Instrument and Analysis Validation Study

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