Photo courtesy of Arline Bronzaft, PhD
A well-known pioneer in researching the effects of noise on children and their ability to learn, Arline Bronzaft has been publishing and speaking out on this subject since her landmark research on the effects of noise on New York City schools—work she first undertook in the 1970s that has had a profound effect on school systems around the world.
Just in time to mark May 2017 as “Better Hearing Month,” Dr. Bronzaft’s latest article appeared this week in the peer-reviewed journal, SCIRP (Scientific Research Publishing) entitled “Impact of Noise on Health: The Divide Between Policy and Science.”
The article succinctly summarizes the troubled history of noise regulation in the United States and points a way forward for researchers and policy makers in the current period—when science is under political attack just as it was in the 1980s. Ever hopeful, Dr. Bronzaft, who has been an active adviser to a succession of Republican and Democratic mayors in her hometown of New York City, seems to suggest that we might all benefit from re-reading the 1988 book “Laboratories of Democracy” by David Osborne to learn about how state and local action can create models for national policy.
Dr. Bronzaft’s steadfast and unrelenting commitment to noise control and to understanding the need for careful science to support informed policy continues to inspire and inform the work of new researchers and policy makers as they approach this field. And her desire to help people control the din in their lives has given her legions of fans in the city that never sleeps (but wants to!).
