Music Community Rallies in Support of World Hearing DayIn celebration of World Hearing Day 2016 March 3, hearing wellness expert Sensaphonics reached out to a star-studded array of musicians to help raise awareness of the importance of hearing health among online fans. Participating artists included Coldplay, Maroon 5, Dave Matthews Band, Lisa Loeb, OK Go, The Lumineers, and Umphrey's McGee. Their social media posts on Twitter and Facebook used #HearingDay and #RespectYourEars hashtags along with hearing-related messages. Building momentum from Sensaphonics' artist outreach, World Hearing Day messages went out to an audience estimated at over 60 million people. Tracking activity throughout the day, Sensaphonics documented over 15,000 "Likes" and 2,000 shares/re-tweets from artist posts alone. Additional musicians, sound engineers, audiologists, and organizations like Audio Engineering Society joined in, with fans liking and sharing, thus extending the campaign's reach deep into social media networks. World Hearing Day is part of the Make Listening Safe campaign, a global outreach program of the World Health Organization (WHO). They note that among young people 12-35, nearly 50% listen to personal audio devices at unsafe levels, and 40% are exposed to damaging levels at nightclubs, bars, and sporting events. The theme for World Hearing Day 2016 was "Childhood hearing loss: act now, here is how." Sensaphonics president and founder, Dr. Michael Santucci, is recognized globally as an expert and advocate for hearing wellness in the music industry. He was an invited presenter at the 2015 WHO/ITU Joint Consultation on Safe Listening Devices in Geneva, Switzerland. "Events like World Hearing Day are a great opportunity to raise awareness of hearing wellness," says Santucci. "The vast majority of hearing health injuries are preventable, so this kind of outreach program has great potential for alerting people of the importance of smart, safe listening habits." 
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