Does pop music cause hearing damage?
Relatively few investigations have so far reported on the hearing in pop musicians. In summary, these have shown a sensorineural hearing loss in 5%. This study was carried out on 83 professionals working with pop music. Depending upon how hearing loss is defined, we found a sensorineural loss in 13-30% of the pop musicians. Hearing losses were slight. It appears that the risk for hearing damage for the audience is small. A limit for presentation of the music at 95 dB (A) is suggested as a compromise satisfying both audiologists and audience.
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D004781:Environmental Exposure; D006317:Hearing Loss, Noise-Induced / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006801:Humans; D008452:Maximum Allowable Concentration; D009146:Music; D009784:Occupational Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology*; D013997:Time Factors