Unless your hearing is tested, it’s really hard to know if it’s damaged. That’s the message of a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) survey that found about one in four U.S. adults who say their hearing is good or excellent actually have hearing damage. Now the latest CDC Vital Signs report shows that much of this damage is from loud sounds encountered during everyday activities at home and in the community.
When your workplace is noisy, your first reaction is to have affected employees wear hearing protection devices (HPDs). But you need details on each employee’s exposure and the effectiveness of the HPD you provide before you can know for certain that each worker is protected.
The CDC’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has unveiled a new mobile application (app) for iOS devices that will measure sound levels in the workplace to help workers learn about their noise exposure and reduce the chances of hearing loss.
NIOSH estimates that 22 million workers are exposed to hazardous noise levels every year.
Hearing loss among U.S. adults aged 20 to 69 has declined over the last decade, even as the population of older Americans continues to grow. These findings, published today in JAMA Otolaryngology–Head & Neck Surgery , also confirm that hearing loss is strongly associated with age and other demographic factors such as sex, race/ethnicity, and education.
From neighbors and traffic to trains and pets, noise is a part of our everyday lives. But there are serious repercussions when it comes to daily exposure to high noise levels. It’s important to stay aware of how noise can affect you—both physically and emotionally—and learn how you can protect yourself from noise pollution.
The pain threshold for humans is 120-130 Decibels. Any sound above 85 dB can cause hearing loss, and the loss is related both to the power of the sound as well as the length of exposure. Here are 10 sounds produced throughout history and how incredibly loud they are. Just remember, human speech is only registered at about 25-35 decibels.
Updated clinical guidelines published the journal Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery say cotton swabs are not appropriate for earwax removal. In fact, information for patients in the guidelines say not to put anything "smaller than your elbow in your ear."
The world is getting louder. Scientists define "noise" as unwanted sound, and the level of background din from human activities has been doubling roughly every three decades, beating population growth. Road traffic in the United States has tripled over the last 30 years. By 2032, the number of passenger flights is expected to be nearly double the 2011 figure—at peak hours, planes are even audible overhead 70 percent of the time in the remote backcountry of Yosemite National Park.
Research published in the Lancet journal found that dementia, a chronic disorder of mental processes, was more common in people who lived within 50 meters of a major road than those who lived further away.
The researchers tracked approximately 6.6 million adults aged between 20 and 85 in Ontario, Canada, for over a decade (2001 to 2012).
What do hypertension, sleep disorders, cardiovascular disease, impaired cognition and being annoyed have in common?
All are possible outcomes of too much noise around us.
Hearing loss and ailments such as the ringing ears of tinnitus aren’t the only things we should worry about. Evidence of the non-auditory effects of noise on health is growing.
