Teen Hearing
|
|
From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I'm Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.
Researchers report a 31 percent rise in the number of teens with some hearing loss. It's generally slight, but the scientists say that, in younger children, even slight losses can affect speech and social development.
The researchers looked at hearing test data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Their two sets of data go back as far as 1988 and extend to 2006.
At Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Dr. Josef Shargorodsky:
``About 1 out of 5 adolescents in the United States has at least some evidence of hearing loss. Moreover, about 1 out of 20 has at least mild hearing loss.'' (9 seconds)
The researchers can't say what caused the hearing loss, but suspect noise is a factor.
The study is in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Learn more at hhs.gov.
HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I'm Ira Dreyfuss.