CHICAGO — A stunning number of teens have lost a little bit of their hearing — nearly one in five — and the problem has increased substantially in recent years, a new national study has found.
Some experts are urging teenagers to turn down the volume on their digital music players, suggesting loud music through earbuds may be to blame — although hard evidence is lacking. They warn that slight hearing loss can cause problems in school and set the stage for hearing aids in later life.
“Our hope is we can encourage people to be careful,” said the study’s senior author, Dr. Gary Curhan of Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.
The researchers analyzed data on 12- to 19-year-olds from a nationwide health survey. They compared hearing loss in nearly 3,000 kids tested from 1988-94 with nearly 1,800 kids tested in 2005-06.
The prevalence of hearing loss increased from about 15 percent to 19.5 percent.
Most of the hearing loss was “slight,” defined as inability to hear at 16 to 24 decibels — or sounds such as a whisper or rustling leaves. A teenager with slight hearing loss might not be able to hear water dripping or someone whispering. Extrapolating to the nation’s teens, that would mean about 6.5 million with at least slight hearing loss.
While the researchers didn’t single out iPods or any other device for blame, they found a significant increase in high-frequency hearing loss, which they said may indicate that noise caused the problems.
