The first part of it is understanding the frequency range and frequency response of your measuring equipment - most of the cheaper (sub 1K) dB meters fall flat around 300 Hz. That isn’t helpful to people who are exposed to 10-100Hz noise on a regular basis because you will never measure it with equipment that doesn’t consider it.
I have been looking in vain at 5K plus cost dosimiters and can’t find specs that state what the frequency range is, which also holds true for lesser meters. Most of the meters I have looked at don’t go beyond 140dB either.
What might be actually useful is a band analyzer that does have specs: http://www.extech.com/instruments/resources/datasheets/407790.pdf
That has a 25Hz ~ 10kHz frequency range (so that misses a lot of the highs), but real truly deafening SPL levels will come from within this range, the dB in high frequencies is what will cause damage in the high frequency range.
It is really about understanding the area of concern and the equipment used to measure the response of said concerning item.
Check this out, it may help out:
http://trace.wisc.edu/docs/2004-About-dB/