Douglas Kamerow, MD, MPH, is a family physician, a former Assistant Surgeon General and the author of “Dissecting American Health Care.”  He works as chief scientist for Health Services and Policy Research at the research institute RTI International and as a Professor of Clinical Family Medicine at Georgetown University. Dr. Kamerow is also an associate editor of the global medical journal BMJ, for which he writes a regular column on health policy, and he is a frequent health commentator on NPR’s All Things Considered. He is the former chair of CFAH’s Board of Trustees.

This is going to sound like just another old guy rant, I’m afraid. But it’s not. Or at least that’s not all it is: I propose that people stop wearing headphones when they are out in public.

Now I realize that I’m already showing my age and lack of hipness by calling them headphones. The correct term of art is at least ear buds, if not some name I don’t even know. But you get the idea: those little speakers on a cord, usually white, that are crammed into everyone’s ears as they walk around, sit on the subway or ride in an elevator. They drive me crazy.

First, they’re intrusive. I can’t sit on a bus anymore without hearing the thumping bass or sizzling cymbals from my seatmate’s mixtapes that are leaking out of his headphones.

Second, they can hurt your hearing, especially when you wear them for hours at a time. Young people in my office wear headphones not only when out and about but also while working at their desks. Accumulating evidence suggests that this longer exposure correlates with increased risk of hearing loss. If someone can hear your earphone leakage from several feet away, it’s too loud.

More serious than harming your hearing, though, it appears that earphone use in public can actually endanger your life.  Read the rest at the Huffington Post where it first appeared on January 26, 2012.

Related Links:

• Prepared Patient: Small Steps to Big Health Change -Randy Dotinga & Kelly Malcom
• Guest Blog: On Alcohol and Breast Cancer, Guilt, Correlations, Fun, Moderation, Doctors’ Habits, Advice and Herbal Tea – Elaine Schattner
• Patient-Centered Care: From Exam Room to Dinner Table – Jessie Gruman

Tags: ear buds, headphones, hearing loss, pedestrians

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