During National Protect Your Hearing Month, noise is the new secondhand smoke

by Daniel Fink, MD, Chair, The Quiet Coalition

Photo credit: Bob Price

I was cleaning my garage recently when I came across a January 2014 clipping from The New York Times that had somehow crept into a box of old financial records. Jane Brody, who wrote the Times’ Personal Health column from 1976 to 2022, had written about changing the view on smoking. Brody was commemorating the first Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking and Health, which had appeared 50 years earlier.

“In 1964, smoking seemed like the thing to do, socially and legally accepted nearly everywhere. If you were not around back then, you’d be shocked by what it was like. Every car was a smoking car. On flights, passengers inhaled recirculated smoke-filled air. The aroma of exquisite restaurant meals was tainted by tobacco smoke. Hospital visitors smoked in patients’ rooms, as did patients themselves. Movies were watched through a smoky haze. Cigarette samples were widely distributed on college campuses, and students smoked freely in their dorms. Young people associated smoking with glamour and sophistication,” she wrote.

Brody went on to discuss the vast progress that had been made in reducing smoking since 1964, with dramatic reductions in deaths from cancer and heart disease. So, this October, during National Protect Your Hearing Month, I’d like to remind people that noise is the new secondhand smoke.

Unfortunately, noise is still viewed as merely an annoyance, not as the health hazard it actually is. We need to change how people view noise. Noise isn’t good. Just as unwanted smoke bothered people in the 1950s and 1960s, unwanted noise bothers people today. Like secondhand smoke, noise is harmful. Noise not only causes hearing loss, tinnitus and hyperacusis, but it also has non-auditory health effects like hypertension, cardiovascular disease and increased mortality.

It’s not necessary to make or hear noise to have fun, just as it’s not necessary at a birthday party or celebration to make loud noise to show how much we love someone. 

Just as train and airplane  travel, restaurant meals and movies can be enjoyed without cigarette smoke, they can be enjoyed without excessive noise. We don’t currently have a Surgeon General, but if and when one is confirmed by the U.S. Senate, I urge that person to issue a Surgeon General’s Report on Noise and Health to make the country aware of the dangers of noise.

Please join us in our efforts to educate the public, elected officials and regulators about the need to reduce noise in the environment. A quieter world will be a better and healthier world for all.

*The title of the article in the online archive is different than how it appeared in the physical newspaper. The Times has a paywall but this article is old and appears to be accessible.