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Figure 1. Image of World Hearing Day edit-a-thon organizational supporters that was shared on Acoustical Society of America social media platforms.
session “Noise: State of the Art-Noise Effects and Control” at the 129th ASA meeting (Shaw, 1995). The special issue was sent to members of the US Congress, encouraging support for a proposed law that was meant to reestablish the Office of Noise Abatement and Control in the Environmental Protec- tion Agency. Despite being reintroduced several times, the latest attempt to pass the law failed in 2006.
After 1998, ASA noise outreach activities began to wane, and it was not until 2010, 18 years after the start of the first efforts, that the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communi- cation Disorders (NIDCD) staff were invited to speak about the “It’s a Noisy Planet” campaign to the Education in Acous- tics Committee during the 159th joint ASA and Noise-Con meeting (noisyplanet.nidcd.nih.gov). Shortly thereafter, the campaign was described in Acoustics Today (Wenger, 2010). Given these activities, it seemed that the noise awareness out- reach was again gaining popularity; however, it was not until January 2018 when Task Force 1 (TF1) of the ASA Strategic Plan developed a plan to institutionalize INAD and other
noise outreach activities within the Society (for an overview of the 2015 Strategic Plan, see Stinson, 2016).
In 2018, TF1 members organized and promoted INAD activities to increase noise awareness and encourage the public to interact with the ASA (for the full INAD report, see Jones, 2018, in Acoustics Today). To maintain and extend these efforts, TF1 was shifted to the TCN as an INAD subcommittee. While the INAD subcommittee was organizing soundwalks, a science of sound workshop, and a media campaign, I began working with staff from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, includ- ing the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, National Center for Environmental Health, and the National Center for Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, to support “World Hearing Day” on March 3, 2019, with a Wikipedia edit-a-thon to improve and expand hearing related articles (Wiki4WorldHearingDay2019; ow.ly/qwNI50ux7YE; Figure 1).
Because many members of the INAD subcommittee were interested in the edit-a-thon and other noise awareness outreach, the name was changed to the Noise Awareness Subcommittee (NAS) to reflect the need and want to do out- reach beyond the INAD. The new mission statement of the NAS is to introduce concepts related to noise to equip and empower the public to get involved and to take action in protecting and shaping their sound environment. For 2020, the NAS plans to address World Hearing Day in March, the INAD in April, North American Occupational Safety and Health Week in May, Better Hearing and Speech month in May, and Protect Your Hearing month in October among other events.
More events may be added to the NAS list as the International Commission for Acoustics (ICA) declared 2020 as the IYS (Figure 2; sound2020.org). La Semaine du Son (The Week of Sound) in France will kick off IYS 2020, with President Victor Sparrow and Executive Director Susan Fox represent- ing the ASA (for an overview of La Semaine du Son, see Accolti, 2017, in Acoustics Today). President Sparrow has also formed an ad hoc IYS committee to plan and coordinate ASA-IYS activities, and those interested should email him (president@acousticalsociety.org). The mission of the IYS is to highlight the importance of sound in all aspects of life
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