Noteboom The Law Firm

GAO Report Evaluates Hearing Loss Among Soldiers and Veterans

February 7, 2011 - Over fiscal year 2009, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) paid out over $1.1 billion in disability benefits to veterans with hearing impairments. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) studied how the Department of Defense (DoD) can improve efforts to reduce or prevent hearing loss by reviewing DoD and VA policies as well as interviewing various personnel, and performing site visits. The hearing loss study focused on:

• How the DoD can ID and reduce hazardous noise;
• How well the DoD assesses programs attempting to conserve hearing; and
• The DoD's Hearing Center of Excellence & how well the DoD and the VA share information.

Every branch of the military is attempting to watch the amount of hazardous noise to which they subject their soldiers. Unfortunately, the inconsistencies in strategies coupled with inadequate training work against any efforts made to lessen soldier exposure to dangerous noise levels.

Reviews by service branch happen periodically, meaning they are done based on the amount of risk to service members based on where they are stationed, e.g., flight decks compared to administrative offices. Unfortunately for the services, however, there is no dependable system that detects changes in noise levels between reviews.

Further, the DoD's programs have serious issues in how they measure the rate of hearing loss. Even so, the process they use to collect information is flawed and the information between audiologists is routinely not shared. Both the DoD and the Army have created plans to ensure more accurate and reliable testing, although not everything has yet been put into place.

The GAO made several recommendations based on their study, which incorporated technical comments from both the DoD and the VA. Their final recommendations were that the DoD must address their training and education as well as create a reliable set of gauges for performance. They also recommend that the DoD improve how they collect data in the first place as well as learn how to look for ways in how to improve their programs.