Photo credit: Afta Putta Gunawan
by Daniel Fink, MD, Chair, The Quiet Coalition
Cincinnati television station WKRC reports that a “new” study published in BMJ Global Health shows that more than one billion young people are at risk of noise-induced hearing loss from unsafe listening habits.
It must have been a slow news day — something hard to believe these days, even in Cincinnati — because as best as I can tell, the study WKRC is citing isn’t new. It appears to be the paper by Dillard et al. titled: “Prevalence and global estimates of unsafe listening practices in adolescents and young adults: a literature review and meta-analysis,” published in 2022. The age range and number of studies used in the paper are the same in the WKRC report and the article.
If this isn’t news, why am I writing about it? Because I can’t say it often enough: noise causes auditory damage, including hearing loss, tinnitus and hyperacusis. If it sounds loud, it’s too loud and the listener’s auditory health is at risk. In everyday modern life in most of the industrialized world, noise exposure is sufficient to cause hearing loss. The additional noise exposure from personal listening devices is also hazardous to auditory health, not just for younger people but for anyone listening to podcasts or audiobooks.
Prevention of noise-induced hearing loss is simple and inexpensive. Turn down the volume, leave the noisy environment or use hearing protection. For those who use personal listening devices while walking or commuting, if the sound volume is turned up high enough to understand what you’re listening to, it’s probably loud enough to cause auditory damage. Instead, try paying attention to your surroundings if you’re walking, or reading something if you’re sitting in a rail car or on a bus.
