Auditory health effects induced by noise exposure

: SummaryNoise is one of the most common environmental and occupational exposures, and noise-induced hearing loss （NIHL） has become the leading occupational disease, secondary to the age-related hearing impairment. It is a significant cause of disability and a major cost to the society. Three characteristics of NIHL have been thoroughly established through numerous studies. First, noise-induced threshold changes increases with noise intensity and duration of exposure. Second, difficulties in speech discrimination and temporal processing even in the presence of normal behavioral thresholds in the subjects with a history of noise exposure. Third, individual susceptibility to noise along with the degree of hearing loss varies greatly among population. NIHL is a complex disease resulting from the interaction between environmental and genetic factors. And much of the literature on NIHL is derived from cross-sectional studies, providing limited evidence for the natural history of the noise exposure. Then, it is urgent to explore the development tendency and identify the susceptible frequencies of NIHL through large-scaled longitudinal study, and provide a new method for estimating individual susceptibility to NIHL.