Program for the conservation and promotion of hearing among adolescents

We describe a program for the promotion of hearing conservation aimed at the adolescent population. The intent of our program is to (a) detect hearing disorders early, as well as to establish their relation to psychosocial and acoustic factors; (b) devise a follow-up procedure to study relevant variables; (c) evaluate the relation between hearing disorders and genetic factors, and (d) raise the social awareness of the effects of noise and its consequences.

This program, designed to be carried out over a 7-year period, focuses on participants from technical schools in the city of Cordoba, Argentina. Every student will be examined at age 14-15 years and will be reexamined at age 17-18. There will be a yearly follow-up in those cases in which disorders are detected.

We discuss the organization and planning of this program, together with its launching in the first of the selected schools. We also describe the findings on the following topics: (a) the hearing data on adolescents (age 14-15 years); (b) their recreational habits, personality traits, and attitudes; and (c) the sound immision characteristics these individuals are exposed to during recreational activities.