STATEWIDE Perspective - Deafening Sound

Noise is the leading cause of hearing damage in 28 million Americans in all walks of life. Sounds from powerful stereos, headphones, and other intense sounds that we experience daily can push the limits of our hearing.
[Kenya Taylor, Audiologist Dept. Chair, UNK] "Everybody is at risk for noise-induced hearing loss because there are so many noise producers out there. Music, the boom boxes, the car radios, all of theseequipment that sound so great now has the potential to be so loud and so terribly dangerous."
Audiologist Kenya Taylor sees noise-induced hearing loss increasing. Here in rural Nebraska, she is alarmed by what she sees in farm workers' audiograms.
[Taylor] "A lot of the times people will get in the cab and open the windows, turn on the radio loud enough to drown out some of the other noise. All of those things add decibel levels and they can be quite loud. While you would ride in that one or two times, it wouldn't make any difference but it's the day in, day out exposure that cause damage."

While anyone can be at risk for noise-induced hearing loss in the workplace, agricultural workers have higher exposures to dangerous levels of noise.

Noise exposure levels may differ but they're exposed a good part of every day.
In the beginning it was difficult to get farmers willing to take hearing exams so Kenya found a way to get thousands of farmers to cooperate. UNK sets up a makeshift hearing clinic at the Husker Harvest Days in Grand Island.
[Taylor] "In a normal population of bearing ages, you would expect hearing loss to be about 20%-28%. We're seeing 78% rate of hearing loss in that population, the agricultural population. Most of those are males. Although females and children, teenagers and children who help also experience some hearing loss. We were seeing noise-induced hearing loss in children as young as 12 years old."
Would any of you like to have your hearing tested? Would you like that?
Yeah.
[Lillian Larson, PhD, Communication Disorders, UNK] "The general population here is at risk. We're not talking about farmers who already have lost some of their hearing. It's a prime time to catch the young people. Last year was the first year that I myself have come over and I was just amazed how many kids are at this event. Would you like ear plugs?"
They said they're out in there.

Give me your word you will wear them.
Especially at the races where you are going to need them. Thank you.
[Larson] "Teenagers have added to the fact that in their work environment it's noisy but the young gentlemen I just gave the ear plugs to, they were talking about when they go to the drag races. And young people tend to turn the volume up on the music so, you know, they are getting in that instance a triple whammy."

How loud is too loud? Sound intensity is measured in decibels or DB. The scale runs from the faintest sound the human ear can detect to extreme sounds so intense it can cause immediate pain. Experts agree that continued exposure to noise above 85 decibels over time will cause hearing loss. There are no State or Federal laws protecting farm workers from noise-induced hearing loss but other industries are under strict Federal regulations. A new Federal law allows the Department of Labor to impose a fine on local gravel pit operators if they subject their workers to prolonged exposure to noise above 85 decibels.

[Wayne Evers, College of Business & Technology, UNK] "That 85 average is what they figured out your ear can stand and there's enough time and rest overnight for it to rejuvenate itself so you start out even again the next day."
Wayne Evers manages the University of Nebraska-Kearney's mobile testing lab. He travels the state monitoring decibel levels that employees are exposed to daily. Today Wayne is testing a gravel pit and workers near the I-80 Minden exit.

[Evers] "Here we are listening to everything in the area. This is just a background monitor to tell you the sound not just of a machine but the general sound in the area. Even though you think the place is quiet, you're not starting at zero. Just outside here, it's going to be 60 or so. Now you only get to go to 85. Its not that far away. We're in the 70-75 range right now. When he winds that up, it will jump. Right there we're in the 84-85. There's 88. There's over 90. And he is not even pulling it. He is a lot closer to the sound than we are."
Gravel pit operators hire UNK to collect on-site noise level data. This is a preemptive measure to correct any government violations before Federal inspectors arrive and hit them with fines. County worker David Moore keeps a timed log of all of his movements during an eight-hour day. He also wears a microphone attached to a decimeter, a pocket-size decibel recorder. The decimeter will record the decibels David is exposed to during an average day on the job.
[Evers] "Red goes on the right. Blue on the left. And we test right ear first and then the left ear. The object here is to run through a series of sounds and find the quietest sound that they can hear at a series of different frequencies. Your hearing does go down some with age. This particular one, he is only 30 years old so you don't expect any real big drops. If it gets much below this, something has caused it. When you get up to be 50 and 60, the chart naturally goes somewhere in the center of this but not in the bottom half."
[David Moore] "There are some days you think your ears get to ringing because of noise levels and stuff like that.

Really I don't think I have noticed a lot of change in mine though."
Are you at all concerned in this type of work over long periods of time that it might have an effect?
[Moore] "Over long periods of time, yeah, it is kind of something to worry about. But at my age, I haven't really thought that much about it yet."
[Evers] "The main thing with hearing that people haven't understood over time is it is not a muscle, it doesn't get stronger.

When you are first at a job, you pick up hail bails and concrete blocks and it's hard work but you get used to it. You build muscles. And so the old gravel pumper says well, I'll get used to. And he does. It doesn't sound so bad. But you know why he's gotten used to it? He doesn't hear it anymore. Your hearing is like a fine instrument. It's like comparing a violin to the sack of cement Once it is injured, it's injured and it stays injured. There's no fixing this part of it."
The fact is noise-induced hearing loss is one of the most common occupational diseases and the second most self-reported occupational illness or injury.
[Taylor] "It happens so often and people don't know it until it's too late. Because you don't know you are losing hearing until you have lost a lot. With exposure to noise, the first frequencies to be damaged are the higher frequencies. You have to lose a lot of hearing in those frequencies before you really notice that you are not hearing as well as you used to. It's a silent killer."
For more in depth information on how to protect your family's hearing, watch a new Nebraska ETV documentary, "Deafening Sound." The one-hour program explores our increasingly noisy and sometimes deafening world. It features interviews with the nation's top hearing loss specialists plus profiles of musicians, technicians, and young adults hooked on extreme sound.