World Hearing Day 2023; March 3rd.

 FORUM: Ear and hearing care for all! World Hearing Day 2023.

This year observance will highlight the importance of integrating ear and hearing care within primary care, as an essential component of universal health coverage. Follow the conversations with the hashtags: #worldhearingday, #hearingcare, #3March.

With this theme, the communication objectives are to:

- Draw attention of decision makers in governments and civil society groups towards the WHO’s recommendations regarding integration of ear and hearing care into PHC.
- Encourage governments to integrate primary ear and hearing care into training programmes for health care providers at primary level.
- Call attention of primary level health care providers (health workers and physicians) towards the needs of people with hearing loss and ear disease.
- Inform people about the importance of ear and hearing care and encourage them to seek services.

Key messages

• Ear and hearing problems are among the most common problems encountered in the community.
• Over 60% of these can be identified and addressed at the primary level of care.
• Integration of ear and hearing care into primary care services is possible through training and capacity building at this level.
• Such integration will benefit people and help countries move towards the goal of universal health coverage.

EVENTS: As part of activities promoting World Hearing Day, the World Hearing Forum (WHF), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the Coalition for Global Hearing Health (CGHH) invite proposals for WHF-CGHH Small Grants for World Hearing Day 2023. On this day, WHO will launch a new training manual - Primary ear and hearing care training manual. The manual will be accompanied with trainer’s handbook and other community resources.

With this year theme " Ear and hearing care for all. Let's make it a reality!" we are taking a step forward in sensitizing and realizing integrated people-centered ear and hearing care.