Hearing Research – Current Insights

Posted: October 6, 2021

  • Nearly 700 current service members and recently military-separated veterans completed the LENS-Q measure of lifetime noise exposure, additional questionnaires, and comprehensive audiometric testing.  Researchers concluded that the LENS-Q is a valuable tool for capturing and measuring both military and nonmilitary noise exposures.

Griest-Hines, S. E., Bramhall, N. F., Reavis, K. M., Theodoroff, S. M., & Henry, J. A. (2021). Development and initial validation of the Lifetime Exposure to Noise and Solvents Questionnaire in U.S. Service members and Veterans. American Journal of Audiology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1044/2021_AJA-20-00145

  • For the first time, the Department of Defense (DoD) has published a comprehensive comparison of audiometric data collected from military personnel as part of a DoD hearing conservation program to demographic and military-service data obtained from the Noise Outcomes In Service-members Epidemiology (NOISE) Study. Results suggest Marine Corps and Army personnel are at risk for hearing threshold changes and that, among Army personnel, this is most pronounced among those exposed to moderate levels of occupational noise exposure.

Reavis, Kelly M., McMillan, Garnett P., Carlson, Kathleen F., Joseph, Antony R.,  Snowden, Jonathan M., Griest, Susan, Henry, James A. (2021). Occupational Noise Exposure and Longitudinal Hearing Changes in Post-9/11 US Military Personnel During an Initial Period of Military Service, Ear and Hearing: Volume 42 - Issue 5 - p 1163-1172. doi: 10.1097/AUD.0000000000001008

  • Engineers at a Navy research and development facility have invented an electronic device called acoustic hailing and disruption (AHAD) that is designed to effectively discourage people from talking. A potential non-lethal weapon (think crowd control) repeats a speaker's own voice back to them, and only them, while they attempt to talk. The main concept is to disorientate a target so much that they will be unable to communicate effectively with others.  Annoying, but effective?

McFadden, C (2021). A New Navy Weapon Actually Stops You From Talking, Interesting Engineering.com, September 2, 2021.