Photo credit: Quinn Dombrowski licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
By Daniel Fink, MD
Noise is a medical and public health problem, and yet people ignore it at their own peril. Most of us are exposed to too much noise every day. That may explain why the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that about 25% of adults age 20-69 had hearing loss, and that many people with hearing loss didn’t know they had it.
Which is why a recent article by Mark Fischetti in Scientific American, “A Loud Warning: Millions of People Do Not Protect Their Ears,” is particularly disturbing. Fischetti reports that while “many people know that they should use earplugs or earmuffs when mowing the lawn or partying at the club,” they don’t protect their ears against noise at home or at work. If you click the link to the article, you’ll see a frightening infographic that very clearly shows that millions of Americans are at risk of losing their hearing or suffering other hearing damage because they fail to protect their ears.
Maybe if people knew that noise caused hearing loss, tinnitus, and hyperacusis–none of which can be cured–they might be motivated to protect their hearing and fight for quiet.
