Will the mere listening to the horns of vehicles make us deaf? This is a question born out of poor awareness, say ENT specialists. The Indian Medical Association (IMA) is going to observe a “No Horn Day” on April 26 to promote awareness on the adverse effects of noise pollution.
Normally, exposure to sound levels less than 70 decibels (dB) does not produce hearing damage, regardless of the duration of exposure. It is also known that exposure for more than eight hours to sound levels in excess of 85 dB is potentially hazardous. To place this in context, 85 dB is roughly equivalent to the noise of a heavy truck on a busy road, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) studies.
According to a study published in the International Journal of Earth Sciences and Engineering by KLU Civil Engineering Associate Professor K. Sundara Kumar, noise pollution has crossed the potentially hazardous level of 85 dB in K.L. Rao Nagar (93.7 dB Leq), Rama Lingeswara Nagar (89.3 dB Leq), Urmila Nagar 89.5 (dB Leq) and NTR University (84.2 dB Leq) to cite some samples in the city.
The expansion of Leq is Equivalent Continuous Noise Level.
The minimum level of 58.2 dB was recorded in Nunna. The noise level was elevated in the urban areas when compared to the sub-urban and rural areas because of traffic, Prof. Sundara Kumar said in his study.
Areas worst hit
The noise levels in several areas of the city have grown considerably in the last five years and are well past the potentially hazardous level of 85 dB.
The areas are: Ashok Nagar, Patamata, Autonagar, Ramavarappadu, Gunadala (near Church), Carmel Nagar, Governorpet, Gandhinagar, Payakapuram, Satyanarayanapuram, Vidyadharapuram, Bhavanipuram and Krishna Lanka.
ENT surgeon T. Rajani Kanth said people lose, to begin with, the ability to hear higher frequencies but since most noises and human conversation are in lower frequencies the hearing loss goes undetected.
By the time the impairment is perceived, a lot of irreversible damage is done, he said.
Many of the vehicle horns, particularly those being used by youth on two-wheelers, are very loud and the damage done by sudden loud noises was more as the “hair cells that convert sound waves into electrical impulses get damaged,” he said.
IMA joint secretary K.S. Karuna Murthy said 75% of the traffic beat police suffered hearing loss. The IMA wanted to focus on the damage being caused by noise pollution.
