USE OF A 3D PRINTED ARTIFICIAL EAR SIMULATION IN MEASURING HEARING RISK IN YOUNG PEOPLE

Hearing loss affects 9 million people, in the UK, and recreational noise exposure, such as concert attendance and personal media player (PMP) use is known to be the biggest preventable contributing factor.Noise induced hearing loss is also known to be on the rise among young people, with a prevalence 14.9 % rising to 19.5 % over a 9-year period among adolescents in the US.Young people are particularly at risk due to the length of time they listen to PMPs such as the iPod and mobile phones.Since the release of the iPod, owing to the battery life and storage improvements, the time that an individual can be listening to music while mobile has increased dramatically, which means that young people are now able to put themselves at much higher hearing risk, daily.This rise of hearing loss in young people raises the pressure to educate young people on the dangers of loud music listening.This pressure however, is met by the resistance of the cost implication on educational facilities, which means that young people are unable to access the tools needed to make an informed decision on their listening risks.This paper discusses the use of a cheaply-manufactured coupler that acts as a direct replacement to standardised, expensive acoustic fixtures in the measurement of listening levels among young people, and shows the results of an initial study, where 82 subjects had the loudness levels of their headphones measured.Data is also shown on the validation process for the coupler, where the performance was tested against a standardised, commercially available coupler.