Alarming Youth Hearing Loss Rates Spark Call for Parents to Intervene
Parents are being urged to intervene and limit their children’s use of personal devices – or risk them losing their
hearing, following the alarming results of a youth hearing loss screening programme.
Initial findings released today [Wednesday, October 2] reveal as many as one in three year 9 pupils – 34 per cent – were
found to have abnormal hearing. And more than 40 per cent of those with normal hearing in the Listen Up Screening Pilot
experienced ringing in their ears – a possible precursor to tinnitus.
“This really is becoming a public health issue, and as a nation we need to address youth hearing loss immediately,”
Natasha Gallardo, chief executive of the National Foundation for Deaf and Hard of Hearing (NFDHH), says.
“Once you lose your hearing, you cannot get it back. Yet the propensity for teenagers to put their hearing at risk is
truly frightening. Parents, caregivers, teachers, employers – we all have to take urgent steps to help young people see
the harm they might be doing.”
NFDHH launched the screening pilot earlier this year to determine the potential risk of non-occupational noise-induced
hearing loss in New Zealand adolescents. It has carried out screenings in three high schools – Rutherford College,
Manurewa High School and Queen Charlotte College with other schools scheduled.
Of the 479 year 9 pupils screened, 162 had an abnormal hearing screening result – that is 34 per cent, or one in three
students. At Manurewa High School, it soared to 46 per cent - 35 of the 76 pupils. Alarmingly most students were using
either headphones or ear buds to listen to their devices.
“We wanted to determine if New Zealand is mirroring global youth hearing loss trends,” Gallardo says. “Globally one in
five young adults have some form of hearing loss. That is a 30 per cent increase from the 1990s. And nearly 50% of
people aged 12-35 years old listen to unsafe levels of sound, through personal devices.”
WHO projections suggest that unless action is taken, there will be 630 million people living with disabling hearing loss
by the year 2030, with that number expected to grow to over 900 million by 2050.
At Manurewa College alone, 28 per cent of all pupils screened said they listened to music at maximum volume for more
than three hours a day. WHO recommends youths are not exposed to maximum levels for more than six minutes per week.
NFDHH intends to lobby the Government for mandatory hearing screening of high school pupils as currently there are no
compulsory checks after pre-school monitoring.
“We need a national programme to assess just how extreme youth hearing loss rates are, and identify children that are at
risk early, as prevention and early detection are key,” Gallardo says.
Meanwhile, WHO says acceptable daily sound levels work like a monetary allowance: you have a limited amount to spend
each day. The louder or longer you are exposed to high levels of sound, the more you “spend”, the faster you run out of
your allowance.
Safe listening levels depend on the intensity (loudness), duration (length of time) and frequency (how often) of the
exposure. The highest safe sound level is 75 decibels up to a maximum of eight hours. So you could be exposed to the
same level of loudness in 15 minutes of music at 100 dB as an industrial worker gets in an eight-hour day at 85 dB.
How to spot someone who may have hearing loss:
• They turn the TV volume up louder than you would
• They miss parts of the conversation, and ask you to repeat it
• They lean forward with an ear towards the sound
ends