Welcome Siti Fatimah Johar to the Department

The Department would like to Welcome Siti Fatimah Johar to the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine. Siti Fatimah graduated with a Bachelor of Audiology (Honours) from the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) with First Class on 22 September 2020. Siti Fatimah has joined the department on the 8th April 2020 as a research assistant for the project “Low-cost hearing screening in adult population at risk of noise-induced hearing loss” (GPF005B-2020).

Hearing is important for military personnel performance and speech processing. Noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) is a significant impairment in the military as they are constantly exposed to high levels of noise. NIHL and tinnitus have been found to the second most prevalent service-connected disability among the US military. However, the situation among the Malaysian military is still not clear, as currently there is no large-scale screening. The screening and diagnosis for NIHL is a laborious process, it involves the use of a soundproof booth and pure tone audiometry. Large-scale screening using this method is expensive and impractical. Having a low-cost hearing screening devise that is easy to administer in adults population at risk of noise-induced hearing loss will be beneficial especially in the population where the risk of noise exposure is high. This study aims to assess the prevalence, incidence and risk factors of NIHL among army personnel and recruits.

The project is a sub-programme of “The development and implementation of a cost-effective community-based hearing screening programme”. This sub-programme is led by Prof Dr Victor Hoe Chee Wai and the other members are Brigadier General (Dr) Faridzal Harryman bin Mohd Din, Dr Jeyanti Kulasegarah and Dr Raja Elina Raja Ahmad. The other sub-programme is “The development and validation of a low-cost computer-based equipment for measuring hearing sensitivity and selectivity” which is led by Dr Kumar Seluakumaran from the Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya.

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