A consultation on the Make Listening Safe initiative was held at the WHO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland on 13-14 February 2019 with the objectives to:
- Share the progress made in different areas of work
- Discuss ways and means for promoting the WHO-ITU standards for safe listening devices
- Initiate the development of a regulatory framework for control of recreational sound exposure in entertainment venues
- Outline approaches for raising awareness among different target audiences
- Finalize the research protocol for determining the incidence of noise-induced hearing loss in recreational settings
Participants included experts in the field of audiology, otology, public health, epidemiology, acoustics and sound engineering; representatives of ITU member organizations, government agencies, NGOs, professional bodies, musical groups and consumer groups.
The meeting included an event to launch the WHO-ITU Global standard for safe listening devices and systems. This event, held at WHO headquarters on 14 February 2019 from 13:00 – 14:00, was marked by a music concert ‘Sound of life’ organized by Grammy Award winner Mr Ricky Kej.
This consultation was followed by two meetings on 15 February 2019:
- Meeting of the working group on development of screening protocol at WHO headquarters
- ITU Study group meeting for safe listening device standards compliance testing at ITU