Collins, Townshend, Clapton, Beethoven. What do these names have in common? Music icons—that they are. 

They also are musicians who have publicly acknowledged their hearing loss and its impact on their musicianship. And these famous names are certainly not alone. 

The Hearing Health Foundation estimates that professional musicians are four times more likely to develop noise-induced hearing loss and 57 percent more likely to develop tinnitus. 

The National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA) for Hearing Loss Prevention was made available to the public July 30, 2019. The document was developed by the Hearing Loss Cross-Sector Council and was available for public comment before being finalized. The NORA councils are populated with a wide variety of stakeholders interested in the specific topic including people from Universities, large and small businesses, professional societies, government agencies, and worker organizations. The overarching goal is to improve safety and health in the workplace. 

During 2011-2012, 21 million U.S. adults who reported no work related no exposure exhibited hearing damage suggestive of noise induced hearing loss and implicated non-occupational noise exposure as a major public health concern (Carroll et al, 2017).

World Hearing Day is designated at the First International Conference on Prevention and Rehabilitation of Hearing Impairment in Beijing, China. Celebrated each year on March 3, the day aims to raise awareness and promote ear and hearing care across the world.

A new analysis by The Wirecutter, a product-recommendation site owned by the New York Times, reveals that one-half of the "children's headphones" allowed levels more than 85 dBA limit considered safe by the World Health Organization.  Furthermore, many of the headphones tested had design flaws that allowed children to bypass safety limits easily.  The worst devices tested produced outputs of 114 dBA for music, which could potentially cause temporary or permanent hearing loss in minutes.