New Delhi amongst top cities where hearing is most degraded

March 5, 2017

Washington D.C, Mar 5: Urban noise pollution and hearing loss are closely linked, according to rankings of 50 large cities in both categories released on Friday. cars

High-decibel urban areas-such as Guangzhou, New Delhi, Cairo and Istanbul-topped the list of cities where hearing was most degraded, researchers reported.

Likewise, cities least afflicted by noise pollution-including Zurich, Vienna, Oslo and Munich-registered the lowest levels of decline in hearing.

This statistical link does not necessarily mean the constant din of city life is the main driver of hearing loss, which can also be caused by infections, genetic disorders, premature birth, and even some medicines.

The findings are also preliminary, and have yet to be submitted for peer-reviewed publication.

"But this is a robust result," said Henrik Matthies, managing director of Mimi Hearing Technologies, a German company that has amassed data on 200,000 people drawn from a hearing test administered via cell phones.

"The fact that noise pollution and hearing loss have such a tight correlation points to an intricate relationship," he told AFP.

Researchers at Mimi and Charite University Hospital in Berlin explored the link by constructing two separate databases.

The first combined information from the World Health Organization (WHO) and Norwegian-based technology research group SINTEF to create a noise pollution ranking for cities around the world.

Stockholm, Seoul, Amsterdam and Stuttgart were also among the least likely to assault one's ears, while Shanghai, Hong Kong and Barcelona came out as big noise makers.

Paris-one of the most densely populated major cities in Europe-scored as the third most cacophonous.

The ranking for hearing loss drew from Mimi's phone-based test, in which respondents indicated age and sex. Geo-location technology pinpointed the cities.

The results were measured against a standard for age-adjusted hearing.

On average, people in the loudest cities were ten years "older"-in terms of hearing loss-than those in the quietest cities, the study found.

Stacked side-by-side, the two city rankings are remarkably similar, suggesting more than an incidental link.

The findings highlight the need for better monitoring, the researchers said.

"While eye and sight checks are routine, ear and hearing exams are not," said Manfred Gross, head of the department of Audiology and Phoniatrics at Charite University Hospital.

"The earlier hearing loss is detected, the better the chances are for preventing further damage."

Collaborations between scientists and private companies that collect health-related information from consumers are becoming more common in the era of Big Data.

California-based DNA genetic testing company 23andMe, for example, has worked extensively with university researchers to ferret out rare genetic disorders by combing through mountains of anonymous data from its clients.

Also on Friday, World Hearing Day, the WHO released figures showing annual costs of unaddressed hearing loss of between $750 billion and $790 billion globally.

Direct health care costs were calculated to be up to $107 billion, with loss of productivity due to unemployment or early retirement about the same.

"Societal costs"-stemming from social isolation, inability to communicate and stigma-were estimated at more than $500 billion.

In a recent editorial, the medical journal The Lancet said hearing loss is a "silent epidemic", noting that proper care remains out of reach for millions of people.

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Crowded homes, poor neighbourhoods linked to COVID-19: Study

Agencies

June 21,2020

Lower neighbourhood socioeconomic status and greater household crowding increase the risk of becoming infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, warn researchers.

"Our study shows that neighbourhood socioeconomic status and household crowding are strongly associated with risk of infection," said study lead author Alexander Melamed from Columbia University in the US.

"This may explain why Black and Hispanic people living in these neighbourhoods are disproportionately at risk for contracting the virus," Melamed added.

For the findings, published in the journal JAMA, the researchers examined the relationships between COVID-19 infection and neighbourhood characteristics in 396 women who gave birth during the peak of the Covid-19 outbreak in New York City. Since March 22, all women admitted to the hospitals for delivery have been tested for the virus, which gave the researchers the opportunity to detect all infections -- including infections with no symptoms -- in a defined population

The strongest predictor of COVID-19 infection among these women was residence in a neighbourhood where households with many people are common.The findings showed that women who lived in a neighbourhood with high household membership were three times more likely to be infected with the virus. Neighbourhood poverty also appeared to be a factor, the researchers said.Women were twice as likely to get COVID-19 if they lived in neighbourhoods with a high poverty rate, although that relationship was not statistically significant due to the small sample size.

The study revealed that there was no association between infection and population density.

"New York City has the highest population density of any city in the US, but our study found that the risks are related more to density in people's domestic environments rather than density in the city or within neighbourhoods," says co-author Cynthia Gyamfi-Bannerman."

The knowledge that SARS-CoV-2 infection rates are higher in disadvantaged neighbourhoods and among people who live in crowded households could help public health officials target preventive measures," the authors wrote.

Recently, another study published in the Journal of the American Planning Association, showed that dense areas were associated with lower COVID-19 death rates.

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'Children under the age of 5 carry higher levels of Covid-19'

Agencies

August 2,2020

Washington, Aug 2: Children under the age of five have between 10 to 100 times greater levels of genetic material of the coronavirus in their noses compared to older children and adults, a study in JAMA Pediatrics said Thursday.

Its authors wrote this meant that young children might be important drivers of Covid-19 transmission within communities -- a suggestion at odds with the current prevailing narrative.

The paper comes as the administration of US President Donald Trump is pushing hard for schools and daycare to reopen in order to kickstart the economy.

Between March 23 and April 27, researchers carried out nasal swab tests on 145 Chicago patients with mild to moderate illness within one week of symptom onset.

The patients were divided into three groups: 46 children younger than five-years-old, 51 children aged five to 17 years, and 48 adults aged 18 to 65 years.

The team, led by Dr Taylor Heald-Sargent of the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital, observed, "a 10-fold to 100-fold greater amount of SARS-CoV-2 in the upper respiratory tract of young children."

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The authors added that a recent lab study had demonstrated that the more viral genetic material was present, the more infectious virus could be grown.

It has also previously been shown that children with high viral loads of the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) are more likely to spread the disease.

"Thus, young children can potentially be important drivers of SARS-CoV-2 spread in the general population," the authors wrote.

"Behavioral habits of young children and close quarters in school and daycare settings raise concern for SARS-CoV-2 amplification in this population as public health restrictions are eased," they concluded.

The new findings are at odds with the current view among health authorities that young children -- who, it has been well established, are far less likely to fall seriously ill from the virus -- don't spread it much to others either.

However, there has been fairly little research on the topic so far.

One recent study in South Korea found children aged 10 to 19 transmitted Covid-19 within households as much as adults, but children under nine transmitted the virus at lower rates.

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