Silencity

Tag Archive: smoking

Loud music is just as addictive as smoking

by Daniel Fink, MD, Chair, The Quiet Coalition

This report from New Zealand states that loud music is just as addictive as smoking.

The only quibble I have with the report is that it states that hearing loss begins at an 85 decibel exposure and that 85 decibels is a safe volume limit for children. Neither statement is correct. Both I and the NIOSH Science Blog have written about how the 85 decibel standard is an occupational standard that should not be used a a safe noise exposure standard for the general public.

But the basic premise of the report–that noise exposure from personal music player use by children is causing hearing loss–is sound.

So break the habit, and lower the volume. Your ears will thank you.

Dr. Daniel Fink is a leading noise activist based in the Los Angeles area. He serves on the board of the American Tinnitus Association, is the interim chair of Quiet Communities’s Health Advisory Council, and is the founding chair of The Quiet Coalition, an organization of science, health, and legal professionals concerned about the impacts of noise on health, environment, learning, productivity, and quality of life in America.

December 27, 2017 Hearing loss, Hearing protection, Noise-induced Hearing Loss (NIHL), , , , 0 Read more >

Cigarette use has dropped sharply among teens

Photo credit: The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0

by Daniel Fink, MD, Chair, The Quiet Coalition

This report in the New York Times documents a sharp drop in smoking by teenagers.

Finally, decades of public health education about the dangers of smoking, restrictions on sales of cigarettes to minors, cigarette advertising, and no-smoking laws, appear to have worked.

Smoking is no longer cool. It doesn’t hurt that increased cigarette taxes have raised the average price of a pack of cigarettes above $6 in the U.S., and as much as $13 a pack in New York City, forcing most teens to choose between smoking and other things they’d rather do.

This report gives me hope that public health authorities can do something to prevent noise-induced hearing loss in teens by educating them about the dangers of noise for hearing; by requiring warning labels on personal music players, earbuds, and headphones; by restricting sales and use to older teens, perhaps above age 15; and perhaps by taxing these devices to fund a federal account to provide hearing aids to those damaged by personal music player use.

A recent editorial in the journal Pediatrics, titled “Adolescent Hearing Loss: Rising or Not, It Remains a Concern,” indicates that the problem is finally getting some attention in the pediatric community. [Note: The Pediatrics link is to a short abstract.  Subscription needed to read the full article.]

The first Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking and Health was published in 1964. I hope it doesn’t take more than 50 years to protect young people’s hearing.

Dr. Daniel Fink is a leading noise activist based in the Los Angeles area. He serves on the board of the American Tinnitus Association, is the interim chair of Quiet Communities’s Health Advisory Council, and is the founding chair of The Quiet Coalition, an organization of science, health, and legal professionals concerned about the impacts of noise on health, environment, learning, productivity, and quality of life in America.

December 18, 2017 Health and Noise, Hearing loss, Hearing protection, Noise and children, Noise-induced Hearing Loss (NIHL), , , 3 Read more >

Here’s some frightening noise news:

Dementia rates “higher near busy roads.” James Gallagher, Health and science reporter, BBC News, reports that researchers have found that “[a]s many as 11% of dementia cases in people living within 50m of a major road could be [due] to traffic.” The researchers, who followed nearly 2 million people in Canada over 11 years, “say air pollution or noisy traffic could be contributing to the brain’s decline.” But other factors could account for the increase in dementia cases, right? They could, but “[t]he researchers adjusted the data to account for other risk factors like poverty, obesity, education levels and smoking so these are unlikely to explain the link.”

Said Dr. Hong Chen, from Public Health Ontario and one of the paper’s authors, “increasing population growth and urbanisation have placed many people close to heavy traffic, and with widespread exposure to traffic and growing rates of dementia, even a modest effect from near-road exposure could pose a large public health burden.”

Still, the study only suggests that there is a link. As Dr. Chen concludes, “[m]ore research to understand this link is needed, particularly into the effects of different aspects of traffic, such as air pollutants and noise.”

 

 

January 10, 2017 Everyday noise, Health and Noise, Medical and scientific news, Public health, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 0 Read more >