Los Angeles — House Research Institute (HRI) has launched a 3-month nationwide campaign to engage teenagers about hearing loss prevention with an online T-shirt design contest. The social media initiative, called “It’s How You Listen That Counts®,” will appear on popular teen websites, such as Pandora, Hulu, YouTube, and Facebook.

Marilee Potthoff, director of community outreach and education at HRI, commented in the press statement, "With hearing loss on the rise among the youth population, and preventable noise-induced hearing loss now affecting more than 12 million people in the United States, we feel an urgent responsibility to educate teens about what they can do to prevent noise damage from happening to them and still enjoy great music and sound."

The contest challenges teens to design a T-shirt that has a message of hearing loss prevention. Teens wanting to submit a design can enter at www.earbud.org. The submitted designs will then be uploaded to the House Research Institute Facebook fan page for voting.

More information is available at http://www.earbud.org/index.html.

The person with the winning design will receive free T-shirts featuring their design and message, plus they will receive a pair of headphones. Additional prize details will be announced shortly at earbud.org.

The contest runs through October 24, 2011, and the winner will be announced by November 30, 2011.

SOURCE: The House Research