For years , the hearing loss
rate was at approximately 15%
across the branches of service . When
we discovered this problem of
hearing loss and tinnitus rates that
lead to over a billion dollars a year
in service connected disabilities .
Year after year , I decided to start
looking at that problem and see if we
couldn't find some solutions that would
help reduce those rates and hearing
protection device fit testing seemed to
be a very right tool .
So we decided to try and investigate
whether or not hearing protection
device fit testing at the individual
level was viable . And our chosen group
to do that with was the Marine Corps's
recruit training command at parris
Island . We are attempting to prevent
hearing loss and tinnitus and any other
auditory injury and we are trying to
mitigate the conflict between
hearing health mandates for protection
and mission requirements .
If you're going to shoot a loud weapon
or use a loud tool , you're supposed
to be wearing hearing protection . But
when you do that , people can't
communicate effectively or they can't
hear audible alarms or in the case of
for example , firing range instructors
who need to hear weapons jams and when
they're training recruits , they can't
hear those signals and and they need to
compromise their hearing protection .
Sometimes those auditory injuries of
hearing loss and tinnitus have been the
number one and number two service
connected disabilities for decades , we
need to do a better job and so our our
team is trying to address knowledge
gaps and specifically to solve the
hearing loss and tinnitus risk problems
as well as prevent the downstream
outcomes from repeated exposures to
hazardous noise . Despite the
implementation of hearing conservation
programs , I had the sneaking suspicion
that the training was not having the
intended effect . So our team went out
into the field to find out what was the
past fail rate . No one had ever really
dared to climb that mountain of going
into the field . We tested 900 recruits
in 10 days And what we found when we
did that with hundreds of training
recruits at Parris Island , we found
that about 40% of them were
unsuccessful in their ability to fit an
earplug . Despite having received that
training when we realized that we
decided we needed to come up with a way
to fix that problem without impacting
the training evolutions and the , the
basic basic trainings calendar . And so
we kind of have a two minute training
version that was shown to be 96%
effective without individual fit
testing . You simply don't know what
that status of an individual is with
fit testing, you now know they are not
adequately protected or they are
overprotected. Person with normal
hearing over protection means that
they're not gonna hear audible warning
signals, they're not gonna hear
communications effectively. Under
protection means they're at risk of
getting injury . If we can improve the
ability of individuals to fit
themselves successfully , then we
reduce the hearing loss rates and the
tinnitus rates and therefore we
positively impact the service connected
disability dollars that are being spent .