Photo credit: Andreas Klinke Johannsen licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
by David M. Sykes, Vice Chair, The Quiet Coalition
According to Cornell researchers cited in this news item from NPR, fewer than 40% of people with a hearing disability work full time. This startling statistic was uncovered by Cornell’s Yang-Tan Institute’s analysis of 2016 American Community Survey data. Wow!
If you, like we at The Quiet Coalition, are concerned about the burgeoning and long-ignored problem of noise-induced hearing loss in the U.S., that’s a very scary prospect. Even with unemployment in the U.S. currently at an historic low of 3.5%, people with hearing disorders still suffer an employment rate of 10 times that!
Hearing is precious, we all know that. But it’s also an economic necessity, especially if you need to earn a living. So remember: protect your own and your family members’ hearing, because exposure to high levels of noise—at work, at home, or at play—is dangerous, unhealthy, and could also be economically disastrous.
As our chairman, Dr. Daniel Fink says: “If it sounds too loud it IS too loud.”
Carry hearing protection with you, always. It really matters.
