PP705 - Long-Term Effects of Vanity-Based Intervention on College-Aged Marching Band Member’s Use of Hearing Protection Devices in Loud Environments

This study looks at the long-term effects of a novel hearing conservation intervention which targets marching band members at two large universities in the Midwest. Survey data before and 3-months post intervention were collected to see if targeting more immediate negative outcomes had an impact on long term healthy listening habits. Analysis of survey data will be described as well as suggestions for future studies.

Summary:

     Literature consistently shows that presentations on hearing conservation will often result in positive short-term outcomes related to intent to practice healthy listening habits (e.g., use hearing protection), but often fall short on actual long term behavior change (Auchter & LePrell, 2014; Jin et al.,2013; Mendes et al., 2007; Seever et al., 2018; Washnik et al., 2021). For marching band members, this may partially be due to unique challenges in this setting including needing to listen to brief instructions in between playing which may give them as little as 10-15 seconds, to remove and then re-insert hearing protection. Despite the known long-term effects of noise exposure, young people especially may be resistant to behavior change in this capacity. In 2012 the Centers for Disease Control found a unique way to impart long term behavior change for young adults who smoke.  They ran a “tips from a former smoker” campaign which highlighted the impact of smoking on physical appearance (e.g., wrinkles, tooth decay). Instead of educating on the long health consequences of smoking, they opted to focus on smoking impacts that may be more meaningful for this population. This campaign was considered successful and resulted in a significant increase in quit attempts and an overall decrease in number of young adult smokers which revealed that targeting vanity may change not only a person’s opinions but also their actions (Davis et al., 2016; Davis et al., 2022; McAfee et al., 2013; Murphy-Hoefer et al., 2020). One way to modify this idea to target young adult marching band members would be to play a clip of their own music that has been filtered to emulate noise induced hearing loss. The purpose of this study is to determine if a novel intervention targeting musician vanity toward their own music is effective at promoting long term behavior change in college age marching band members.

     This study uses a quasi-experimental (pre-post survey) design. Marching band members at two large universities in the Midwest were administered a modified version of the Knowledge Attitudes and Beliefs (Saunders et al.,2014) questionnaire in addition to collecting demographic information.  After the initial survey data was collected, an educational presentation was given to all band members which included information about the auditory system, how sound impacts hearing, an example of their music that had been filtered to simulate noise induced hearing loss, and strategies to protect their hearing. Three months later the modified KAB was sent to the members who participated in the initial survey.  Results from the initial survey will be compared to the final survey to determine if this intervention had a significant impact on knowledge and behaviors surrounding healthy listening habits.

     Currently we are still collecting data from the secondary survey. This data will be fully collected by the end of the year and will be analyzed to determine the impact of the intervention. We will summarize the study findings, limitations, and provide suggestions for future studies of this nature.