Hearing loss is an important global health concern

Hearing loss is not just a condition affecting the ability to hear. It can have profound effects on interpersonal communication, health in general including mental processes, independence, wellbeing, quality of life, and daily function. It has been reported that 360 million people worldwide — 5.3% of the population — live with disabling hearing loss, while around 15% have some degree of hearing impairment (WHO, 2012). The regions most affected are Asia-Pacific, southern Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa.

The editorial emphasizes that many people with hearing loss in both resource-poor and highly developed countries do not seek hearing health care. In addition, the current production of hearing aids meets less than 10% of overall requirements. This unmet need was one of the factors prompting the American National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to issue the June report entitled Hearing Health Care for Adults: Priorities for Improving Access and Affordability.

This report also pointed out that there is a severe lack of data on the effectiveness of interventions and outcome evaluations; it recommends a set of research priorities including randomized controlled clinical trials to evaluate the efficacy of hearing aids, along with well-designed longitudinal population-based studies. Many of the report’s findings can be extrapolated to the global context, but a significant concern that is not addressed is the high level of hearing impairment among children in the developing world.

The Lancet points out that hearing loss has been ranked as the 5th leading cause of years lived with disability (Global Burden of Disease Study, 2013), but that research funding and public awareness are not in line with the importance of the condition.

Source: Hearing loss: an important global health concern. The Lancet, Volume 387, Issue 10036, 2351.