%0 Journal Article %J Mil Med Res %D 2016 %T The impact of hearing impairment and noise-induced hearing injury on quality of life in the active-duty military population: challenges to the study of this issue. %A Alamgir, Hasanat %A Caryn A Turner %A Nicole J Wong %A Sharon P. Cooper %A Jose A. Betancourt %A Henry, James %A Andrew J Senchak %A Tanisha L. Hammill %A Mark D Packer %X

The objectives of this research were to 1) summarize the available evidence on the impact of hearing loss on quality of life (QOL) among U.S. active-duty service members, 2) describe the QOL instruments that have been used to quantify the impact of hearing loss on quality of life, 3) examine national population-level secondary databases and report on their utility for studying the impact of hearing loss on QOL among active-duty service members, and 4) provide recommendations for future studies that seek to quantify the impact of hearing loss in this population. There is a lack of literature that addresses the intersection of hearing impairment, the military population, and quality of life measures. For audiological research, U.S. military personnel offer a unique research population, as they are exposed to noise levels and blast environments that are highly unusual in civilian work settings and can serve as a model population for studying the impact on QOL associated with these conditions. Our team recommends conducting a study on the active-duty service member population using a measurement instrument suitable for determining decreases in QOL specifically due to hearing loss.

%B Mil Med Res %I 3 %V 3 %P 11 %8 2016 %G eng %U http://mmrjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40779-016-0082-5 %1 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27076916?dopt=Abstract %2 PMC4830069 %R 10.1186/s40779-016-0082-5