Active Duty - U.S. Army Noise Induced Hearing Injury Surveillance, Calendar Years 2007-2011.

摘要

Purpose: Since 2010, the DOD Hearing Conservation Working Group, the U.S. Army Public Health Command, the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center and the DOD Hearing Center of Excellence collaborated to develop new noise-induced hearing injury (NIHI) surveillance data. The purposes of these data analyses are as follows: To present and summarize available data for use in NIHI prevention program and policy planning, including - *Defining the relative impact of NIHI among U.S. Army Active Duty personnel in the total Army and at individual Army installations. *Providing Army injury rates and trends from 2007-2011. *Identifying demographics most closely associated with NIHI incidence. *To monitor progress-based metrics for reducing the NIHI morbidity burden over time. This first NIHI data summary provides a basis against which future years' data can be compared for assessment of NIHI trends as prevention performance indicators. Conclusions: The Army NIHI surveillance annual summary for calendar years (CY) 2007-2011 showed increasing incidence rates for sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL), tinnitus, and significant threshold shift (STS). Recommendations: Commanders and Preventive Medicine should use NIHI data summaries trends to maintain situational awareness of the progress of NIHI prevention operations. Using the periodic NIHI data summaries, Commanders and PM should adjust prevention plans when the need is indicated from the outcomes data trends.