In March of this year, 2021, the World Health Organization published their report on the condition of global hearing health care. Here are the opening words from the report by the World Health Organization on global hearing health care.
“Hearing is the sense through which we engage our environment, communicate with others, and express our thoughts and gain education.”
The report is more than 250 pages long, and is a comprehensive review of the healthcare around the world when it comes to hearing. It makes a strong case that hearing health should become more of a priority for governments around the world.
In this report, one of the reasons stated is that society receives approximately $16 in benefit for every dollar spent on hearing healthcare. However, there is quite a series challenge ahead: according to this report, there will be more than 2.5 billion people with hearing loss by the year 2050.
The report states that hearing health services can be organized around the acronym HEAR:
Hearing screening and intervention
Ear disease prevention and management
Access to technology
Rehabilitation services
The report also examines hearing health by individual countries, with a strong emphasis on prevention, identification, and treatment. Today the range of access to these services varies tremendously by country. For example, roughly 33% of the world population has the benefit of near universal infant hearing screening (more than 85% of infants screened). Sadly, 45% of the global population has little or no infant hearing screening.
On a brighter note, most cases of hearing loss are medically treatable. However access to treatment is severely limited in less developed countries. Most of the less developed countries have approximately one ENT physician and one audiologist per million persons. Now in developed countries there are about 10 ENT physicians in 10 audiologist per million persons.
Dr. T. Ghebreyesus, the WHO director, has summarize the challenge this way:
“Untreated hearing loss can have a devastating impact on the ability to communicate, to study, and earn a living. It can impact a persons mental health and ability to maintain a relationship. This report offer solutions that we encourage all countries to integrate into their health system.”
We have provided two links for you below. The first one is the report in English and the second in Spanish. The report in the link below provides a downloadable pdf report in English.
Report On Global Hearing Health Care in English
https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/world-report-on-hearing
And for those who would prefer to read it in Spanish, we have also provided the link to the report in Spanish which was published in October of this year, 2021. The report in the link below provides a downloadable pdf report in Spanish as well.
Report On Global Hearing Health Care in Spanish
https://iris.paho.org/handle/10665.2/55067
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