Page 15 - October 2010

IT’S A NOISY PLANET:
TWO STELLAR YEARS OF PROTECTING YOUNG EARS
Jennifer Wenger
Office of Health Communication and Public Liaison
National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) National Institutes of Health
Bethesda, Maryland 20892
Every now and then, a study called noise-induced hearing
will come along that makes
everyone sit up and take notice. For those people who are concerned about hearing loss, that study, which appeared in the 18 August issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), delivered the worri- some news that hearing loss in teens appears to be on the rise.
Comparing data from two
National Health and Nutrition
Examination Surveys, researchers
from the Brigham and Women’s
Hospital, Boston, found that the number of teens who have hearing loss has jumped from roughly 15 percent for the years 1988-1994 to nearly 20 percent for the year 2005-2006, a 31 percent increase in a surprisingly short period of time. Although the researchers emphasized that the cause for the increase was unclear, many news headlines blamed the ubiq- uitous earbud for the startling statistic.
“It’s become popular to point to MP3 players as the most likely cause for hearing loss in young people, but it’s really too early to tell without further research,” said James F. Battey, Jr., M.D., Ph.D., director of the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), one of the National Institutes of Health. “Nevertheless, the findings are a clear signal that there is reason for concern. They also rein- force the need for educational campaigns such as Noisy Planet to help young people develop good hearing habits early on—before they show the signs of hearing loss.”
A campaign that sounds off against noise-induced hearing loss
Scientists believe that, depending upon the type of noise, the pure force of vibrations from loud sounds can cause hear- ing loss. In addition, exposure to too much noise can trigger the release of damaging molecules, called free radicals, which damage sensory cells in our inner ear. These sensory cells, called hair cells, are the tiny but tenacious structures that convert sound vibrations into electrical signals that travel to the brain. Although scientists have been working on means to regenerate hair cells, at least for mammals, once hair cells have been injured, they are gone for good.
With this in mind, the NIDCD created It’s a Noisy Planet. Protect Their Hearing, a national educational cam- paign that was launched in October 2008 to increase aware- ness about hearing loss caused by overexposure to loud noise,
14 Acoustics Today, October 2010
loss, or NIHL. Although people of all ages can benefit from the Noisy Planet message, the cam- paign’s primary target audience is the parents of tweens—kids aged 8 to 12.
“Tweens are at a great stage in life,” said Patricia Blessing, chief of NIDCD’s Office of Health Communication and Public Liaison and the mother of an energetic 11-year-old daugh- ter. “They’re figuring out who they are and what they like to do,
yet they’re still not above looking to their parents for guid- ance. Our goal is to reach them while they’re still young, so they can learn how to protect their hearing at home, at school, on the job, and throughout their lives.”
NIHL is generally gradual, accumulating over a lifetime of exposure to cranked up music, sporting events, power tools, and loud traffic. However it can also occur right away after a very loud “impulse” noise, such as the blast of a gun or bottle rocket. While there are some causes of hearing loss over which we have little control—genes, disease, and aging to name a few—NIHL is perhaps the most preventable form of hearing loss there is. The NIDCD estimates that approxi- mately 15 percent of Americans between the ages of 20 and 69 have high-frequency hearing loss due to exposure to loud sounds or noise at work or in leisure activities. Put another way, that is 26 million American adults who may have been able to prevent their hearing loss by practicing just a few sim- ple steps when they were younger.
A history of NIDCD and NIHL
The NIDCD has been funding research and educational programs on NIHL since its beginning in 1988. In 1990, the NIDCD took part in a National Institutes of Health consen- sus conference on noise and hearing loss. The outcome of the conference was a consensus statement that addressed the characteristics of NIHL, dangerous sound levels, a person’s susceptibility, prevention strategies, and directions for research. In its Fiscal Year 1998 Senate Appropriations Committee Report (S. Rept. 105–58), Congress also expressed concern about the number of Americans whose hearing is impacted by loud noise. As a result of that report, NIDCD sponsored an NIHL conference in collaboration with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), the National Institute of Environmental