Photo credit: Nataliya Vaitkevich
by Daniel Fink, MD, Chair, The Quiet Coalition
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported this past fall that the prevalence of diabetes in adults in the United States increased from about 8% to almost 16% from 2000 to 2020. That means that almost 1 in 6 American adults have diabetes. The increased diabetes prevalence correlates with increased caloric intake, increased ingestion of highly processed foods and sugary drinks, increased obesity and decreased physical activity.
“Prevalence” has a specific meaning in epidemiology: the number of people in a defined population who have a condition or disease at a specific point in time. Prevalence statistics are used by epidemiologists to study the burden of disease at a specific time, and which diseases are increasing or decreasing in the population over time.
Why am I writing about diabetes in a blog about noise? Because when disease prevalence changes rapidly, the change must be caused by some specific factor or factors. For example, the prevalence of people with COVID-19 increased rapidly in 2020 due to the spread of infections caused by a novel coronavirus, and then decreased as immunity developed from vaccination or infection among the population. As stated above, the causes for diabetes are thought to be increased obesity due to diet and exercise.
The prevalence of hearing loss in children and adults appears to be stable, according to published reports, but there is anecdotal evidence that suggests this may be changing. There have been multiple media reports about hearing health professionals seeing patients with tinnitus or hearing loss who are younger than usual. Most hearing loss and tinnitus is caused by excessive noise exposure, and the vector for noise exposure is the personal listening device. In epidemiology, a vector is something that spreads a disease. For example, the Anopheles mosquito is the vector for the spread of malaria. I smiled as I typed this, because this may be the first mention of personal listening devices as vectors for noise-induced hearing loss.
I have written about excessive noise exposure in the United States and most of the industrialized world and the fact that personal listening devices are dangerous for auditory health. The only evidence-based safe noise exposure is a time-weighted average of 70 decibels for a day.
Unfortunately, I expect the prevalence of noise-induced hearing loss to continue to rise, especially among young people. This isn’t normal. As with the increased prevalence of diabetes, it is due to behaviors — not excessive caloric intake, but excessive noise exposure — and is entirely avoidable.
Avoiding noise-induced hearing loss is easy and inexpensive. If something sounds loud, it’s too loud and your hearing is at risk. Avoid loud noise, turn down the volume if you can, leave the noisy environment or use hearing protection. If you follow these steps, you probably won’t develop hearing loss or tinnitus.
