Discotheques?!

Last night, I read the first three articles of the 30 I just printed off. I've still got plenty of online journals to search, but I think this is a good start.

One of the three was just a simple article in Audiology Today, and didn't yield anything worthwhile.

However, the other two were:
"Recreational noise exposure and its effects on the hearing of adolescents. Part I: An interdisciplinary long-term study." Mario R Serra, et. al International Journal of Audiology (2005)

and

"Position Statement of the American Academy of Audiology: Preventing Noise-Induced Occupational Hearing Loss" Elliott Berger, et, al Audiology Today (2004)


The position statement provides a lot of baseline standards and data for noise exposure. A few choice experts are:
"According to the National Institutes of Health, approximately one third of all hearing loss can be attributed to noise exposure..."
I would venture to guess that this number will increase as my generation ages. I've noticed that even when my peers are made aware of the repercussions, they remain passive.

Audiologists should, "...think in terms of hearing loss prevention rather than hearing conservation."
I wasn't aware that this was the position of AAA. I like it, and I think it fits with the spirit of the research.

"The success or failure of a hearing loss prevention program, including employee buy-in, depends up on effective education and training (Berger, 2001)."
Now to the core. This excerpt will support the idea that creative implementation of the information will determine its efficacy. As I mentioned in my statement of purpose, it's not enough to just know the facts. (See next quote.)

"...education and training must consist of more than showing a film and passing out a pamphlet or it will be ineffective."



The Recreational Noise Exposure article was a semi-longitudinal study conducted over four years in Argentina with (63) male and (43) female subjects ages 14-17. The participants underwent a battery of audiological tests every year for four years, and common activities were analyzed. The study found that:
1. Their participation in musical recreational activities increased yearly.
2. The favorite musical activity for both groups was attendance at discos, especially during the last years of the study.
3. Conversely, use of personal music players was not so important.
4. Attendance at live concerts increased during the last year of the study, but it was not as frequent as attendance at discos.

The measurements inside the discotheques ranged from 104.3 dBA to 112.4 dBA, with peaks as high as 11.5 dBA. At even the lowest value, a dosimeter was used and a dose of 1600% was obtained, although the authors did not mention how long the dosimeter was used inside the building. Either way, if young people are attending those discos on a regular basis, they're sure to feel the effects.

The authors mentioned that it was, "...clear that the exposure of the adolescents to equivalent sound levels of music above 100 dBA at discos exceeds, in all the cases, the most recent international recommendations for hearing conservation in occupational environments. The difference between a worker and an adolescent attending discos once or twice a week is the recovery time between exposures. However, meanwhile, the adolescents also participate in other noisy entertainments, which must be added to the music exposure at discos."
This excerpt is essential to the exigence in our research topic. Sure, young adults may have a week between their exposure to live concert-style music (at coffee shops, bars, clubs, etc.) but during that week they're listening to loud music in their car, through headphones, going to sporting events, potentially working in noisy environments, attending movies in loud theaters, and the list goes on.

One point made in the article is that young people in Argentina were not listening to portable music on a regular basis, which I believe is directly counter to the reality in America. I would venture to guess that American teenagers are more likely to listen to portable music players than they are to attend anything equivalent to discotheques, particularly because of a lack of expendable cash these days.

Anyway, these are just the beginning of gobs of research I've got to read! I'll be reading again tonight and have an update soon.