Incidence and relative risk of hearing disorders in professional musicians.
BACKGROUND
Hearing disorders have been associated with occupational exposure to music. Musicians may benefit from non-amplified and low-intensity music, but may also have high risks of music-induced hearing loss.


OBJECTIVE
To compare the incidence of hearing loss (HL) and its subentities in professional musicians with that in the general population.


METHODS
We performed a historical cohort study among insurants between 19 and 66 years who were employed subject to social insurance contributions. The study was conducted with data from three German statutory health insurance providers covering the years 2004-2008 with about 7 million insurants. Incidence rates with 95% CIs of HL and the subentities noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL), conductive HL, sensorineural HL, conductive and sensorineural HL, as well as tinnitus were estimated stratified by age, sex and federal state. A Cox regression analysis was conducted to estimate adjusted HRs and two-sided 95% CIs for HL and its subentities.


RESULTS
More than 3 million insurants were eligible, of whom 2227 were identified as professional musicians (0.07%). During the 4-year observation period, 283,697 cases of HL were seen, 238 of them among professional musicians (0.08%), leading to an unadjusted incidence rate ratio of 1.27. The adjusted hazard ratio of musicians was 1.45 (95% CI 1.28 to 1.65) for HL and 3.61 (95% CI 1.81 to 7.20) for NIHL.


CONCLUSIONS
Professional musicians have a high risk of contracting hearing disorders. Use of already available prevention measures should reduce the incidence of HL in professional musicians.
Department of Clinical Epidemiology, Leibniz Institute for Prevention Research and Epidemiology-BIPS, Bremen, Germany.
Tania
T
Schink
Department of Music, School of Linguistics and Cultural Studies, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany.
Gunter
G
Kreutz
Department of Musicology and Music Education, Faculty of Cultural Studies (FB 9), University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany.
Veronika
V
Busch
Department of Biometry and Data Management, Leibniz Institute for Prevention Research and Epidemiology-BIPS, Bremen, Germany Institute of Statistics, Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science (FB 3), University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany.
Iris
I
Pigeot
Institute of Statistics, Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science (FB 3), University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany Department of Epidemiologic Methods and Etiologic Research, Leibniz Institute for Prevention Research and Epidemiology-BIPS, Bremen, Germany.
Wolfgang
W
Ahrens
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D034381:Hearing Loss / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology*; D006314:Hearing Loss, Conductive / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology; D006317:Hearing Loss, Noise-Induced / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology*; D006319:Hearing Loss, Sensorineural / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009146:Music; D009784:Occupational Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology*; D016273:Occupational Exposure / Q000009:adverse effects*; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D012307:Risk Factors; D014012:Tinnitus / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology; D055815:Young Adult