Know Your Noise

Information factsheet on the Know Your Noise website.

Know Your Noise is a website recently launched by the National Acoustic Laboratories (NAL) and partially funded by the Australian Government Department of Health.  Know Your Noise offers a noise risk calculator, where people can measure the ‘dose’ of noise they have been exposed to after attending a noisy event, or from noise in their workplace.  The calculator measures whether the level of noise exposure from these activities has created a risk of hearing damage. 

Users can then experiment with their responses to see how making changes to their lifestyle could reduce their risk of hearing damage.

The website also provides an online hearing test tool which assesses how well the user can hear in a noisy background.  Users have the option to then submit their results from the calculator and the hearing test to NAL, to assist with further research.

With the support of the Hearing Service’s Hearing Loss Prevention Program, NAL has conducted several investigations into hearing health in Australia and the results of that work has informed the creation of Know Your Noise.  For example, the data used for Know Your Noise is based on the results of over 8,000 people who participated in NAL’s online project in 2012, Soundcheck Australia.

Know Your Noise is sponsored by the HEARing Cooperative Research Centre’s HEARsmart initiative, which aims to bring about a cultural shift in how Australians think about their exposure to loud noise. HEARsmart aims to make a positive impact on Australians’ hearing health, change attitudes and behaviours towards harmful noise exposure, and reduce the prevalence of acquired hearing loss in Australia.

To find out more, visit the Know Your Noise website.