So even if we are excellent Dangerous Decibels educators, and we make a difference in the classroom by motivating kids to protect their hearing, what if next year one of them sees their friends listening to loud music and thinks about doing the same risky behavior? The question all health behavior advocates ask is how can we change health behavior for the long term? How can we be sure that students will retain what they learn about hearing protective strategies, and use them for a lifetime?

While it’s very important to educate, and model hearing protective strategies and skills in the classroom, we will need to teach these strategies and change attitudes in communities, so that hearing protection becomes common at all levels of influence, so that hearing loss prevention becomes the social norm in every community. Then, walking away, or turning it down, or wearing ear protection, when faced with very loud sounds, will be shared by us all.