Forty million adults have lost some hearing because of noise, and half of them suffered the damage outside the workplace, from everyday exposure to leaf blowers, rock concerts and other loud sounds, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. One quarter of people age 20 to 69 were suffering some hearing deficits, the CDC reported in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, even though most people in the study claimed to have good or excellent hearing. The researchers found that 24 percent of adults had “audiometric notches” — a deterioration in the softest sound a person can hear — in one or both ears. The data came from 3,583 people who had undergone hearing tests and reported the results in the 2011-12 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. The review’s more surprising finding — which the CDC had not previously studied — was that 53 percent of those people said they had no regular exposure to loud noise at work. That means the hearing loss was caused by other environmental factors, such as leaf blowers, sirens, concerts and listening to music through headphones with the volume turned up too high. (Public health authorities long ago identified the need to protect hearing from machinery and other generators of loud sounds in the workplace.) “Noise is damaging hearing before anyone notices or diagnoses it,” said Anne Schuchat, the CDC’s acting director. “Because of that, the start of hearing loss is underrecognized.” The study revealed that 19 percent of people between…more detail
