In partnership with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and the Council for Accreditation in Occupational Hearing Conservation (CAOHC), the NHCA is pleased to announce the call for applications for the 2025 Safe-in-Sound Excellence in Hearing Loss Prevention Awards™. These awards honor organizations and individuals who have demonstrated exceptional achievements in hearing loss prevention within work environments.

• Excellence in Hearing Loss Prevention Award: Recognizes organizations that have implemented effective and measurable hearing loss prevention programs across any industrial sector.
• Innovation in Hearing Loss Prevention Award: Honors individuals or entities that have introduced innovative solutions addressing challenges in occupational hearing loss prevention, including advancements in policy, program development, and outreach.

Register today for the live webinar:
Auditory Fitness for Duty
May 21, 2025, 2:00pm - 3:00pm Eastern Time 
This webinar will be recorded

About the Webinar: Three distinguished researchers will review strategies used to assess hearing fitness for duty in occupational and military populations. This session will discuss the concept of functional hearing assessments, job task analysis as it relates to communication and auditory signals, and how these assessments go beyond traditional hearing conservation testing.

CEUs: 1-hour CEU (AAA and 0.1 ASHA CEU)

Meet our Presenters: 

Douglas Brungart, Ph.D.

Chief Scientist at the National Military Audiology and Speech Pathology Center at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center with extensive expertise in the application of advanced technology to improve the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of hearing loss and other hearing and speech disorders.

Odile Clavier, Ph.D.

Principal Investigator at Creare. She has led the development of groundbreaking hearing assessment systems currently used across occupational and military applications, including the Wireless Automated Hearing Test System for boothless audiometry and the open-source TabSINT software.

Christian Giguère, Ph.D.

Professor in Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology at the University of Ottawa, with research focusing on speech communication, warning sound perception, and hearing loss prevention. Active member of several national and international technical working groups (CSA, ANSI, ISO) related to occupational hearing loss, hearing protection, and audiology. 

What you’ll learn: 

• Describe what constitutes a hearing-critical task
• Discriminate between a hearing threshold test and a functional hearing test
• Identify at least one hearing test that has been used to assess functional hearing performance 

Did you ever wonder what sharks sounded like? Or perhaps you believed they were silent predators? Sharks have been recorded actively making noises for the first time.

Between May 2021 and April 2022, researchers at the University of Auckland obtained and recorded 10 juvenile rigs, between 55.5 and 80.5 centimeters (22 and 32 inches) in length, five male and five female. Each shark was placed in a small experimental tank and handled by the researchers. While they were being handled for 20 seconds, sharks made short, high-frequency clicks, averaging about 48 milliseconds per click, with a mean peak frequency between 2.4 and 18.5 kilohertz. A sound at 2.4 kilohertz can be heard in the video below. 

For more fascinating details read the full news article here and the original paper in the Royal Society of Open Science here. Thanks to Theresa Schulz for this contribution and to Elliott Berger for last month’s postcard.

Speaking, publishing, researching, performing, hearing? NHCA would love to hear about exciting changes and achievements in your professional and personal endeavors.

Who is NHCA?

Our Vision: To prevent hearing loss and other auditory disorders due to noise and secondary environmental factors in all sectors of society.

Our Mission: NHCA provides leadership, expertise, and education on hearing loss prevention strategies and services to the broader professional community and empowers and supports members through networking and advocacy.