National Hearing Health Strategy

Damage to your hearing won′t threaten your life. But it can certainly influence the quality of your life by limiting your opportunities for:

• communicating with family and friends
• entertainment
• employment

The dangers of hearing loss from excessive exposure to noise are becoming more apparent. At particular risk are people in the 18–30 year age group.

New Zealanders now know about the dangers of passive smoking, exposure to the midday sun and driving when drunk. This common knowledge has come about from successful social marketing campaigns.

So the NFD is working on plans to change New Zealanders attitudes to excessive environmental and recreational noise in a similar way about noise-induced hearing loss.

On 2 April 2008, we ran a discussion forum for representatives of key organisations involved in hearing health. At this forum, we presented the findings of our survey into social marketing approaches, both in NZ and overseas.

We also discussed the need for a National Hearing Health Strategy. In particular, we talked about what might be the key objectives for this strategy.

As a result of the April forum, a group has now developed the strategic objectives.  A workshop was held on 9 September 2009 to progress the initiative.  Find out more

If you’d like to stay informed about progress or contribute ideas, feel free to contact us.