EVENTS: On March 3rd, to mark World Hearing Day 2024; The Member States, partners and stakeholders are encouraged to organize a webinar to raise awareness in communities, in order to address mis-perceptions around ear and hearing problems and ensure accessible ear and hearing care. 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 2024.Kindly register to participate to World Hearing Day 2024 events to get global visibility. The event information will be made available to a wider global audience.
EXHIBITS: Changing mindsets is essential to making ear and hearing care accessible. Through this photo exhibition and related stories, the World Health Organization and the World Hearing Forum will draw attention to the positive impact of timely identification and management of ear and hearing problems in order to correct existing mis-perceptions and change damaging mindsets.
PUBLICATIONS:
For World Hearing Day, marked on 3 March, the World Health Organization (WHO) has released new technical guidance on hearing aid service delivery approaches for low- and middle-income settings. This document is designed to provide practical guidance to countries in developing hearing aid services in areas that lack human resources for assessing hearing, as well as fitting and maintaining hearing aids.
The guidance, developed with support from the ATScale Global Partnership for Assistive Technology, is based on the principle of task sharing among specialists and trained non-specialists. It includes two approaches, one targeting adults and the other for children 5 years and over, and is accompanied by resources with tips for healthy ear care practices, use of hearing aids and how to support people living with hearing loss.
“Over 400 million people with hearing loss could benefit from using hearing devices. However, less than 20% of these needs are fulfilled,” said WHO Director for the Department for Noncommunicable Diseases, Dr Bente Mikkelsen. “Unaddressed hearing loss is a global public health challenge and incurs an estimated cost of over US$ 1 trillion annually. Given the global shortage of ear and hearing care specialists, we have to rethink how we traditionally deliver services.”
The release of the new guide coincides with World Hearing Day. The theme for 2024 is “Changing mindsets: Let’s make ear and hearing care a reality for all”, highlighting the importance of correcting misconceptions of hearing loss that are common among the general public and primary health providers.
The guidance, developed with support from the ATScale Global Partnership for Assistive Technology, is based on the principle of task sharing among specialists and trained non-specialists. It includes two approaches, one targeting adults and the other for children 5 years and over, and is accompanied by resources with tips for healthy ear care practices, use of hearing aids and how to support people living with hearing loss.
“Over 400 million people with hearing loss could benefit from using hearing devices. However, less than 20% of these needs are fulfilled,” said WHO Director for the Department for Noncommunicable Diseases, Dr Bente Mikkelsen. “Unaddressed hearing loss is a global public health challenge and incurs an estimated cost of over US$ 1 trillion annually. Given the global shortage of ear and hearing care specialists, we have to rethink how we traditionally deliver services.”
The release of the new guide coincides with World Hearing Day. The theme for 2024 is “Changing mindsets: Let’s make ear and hearing care a reality for all”, highlighting the importance of correcting misconceptions of hearing loss that are common among the general public and primary health providers.
Existing mindsets limit access to hearing care.
The first of 2 key challenges in ear and hearing care is the lack of health system capacity for the provision of integrated ear and hearing care throughout people’s lives, as evidenced by a lack of policies, human resources and dedicated finances. The service delivery approaches detailed by WHO aim to overcome this challenge by better utilizing non-specialists in providing hearing care to increase capacity.
The second key challenge relates to misperceptions and stigmatizing mindsets about hearing loss and ear diseases, which are deeply ingrained within societies and often limit the success of efforts to improve hearing care. Common misperceptions include the idea that hearing loss is an inevitable part of old age and that hearing aids do not work well or are too expensive.
“Common myths about hearing loss often prevent people from seeking the services they require, even where these services are available,” said Dr Shelly Chadha, technical lead for ear and hearing care at WHO. “Any effort to improve hearing care provision through health system strengthening must be accompanied by work to raise awareness within societies and address stigma related to ear and hearing care.”
Misperceptions are also prevalent among primary health care providers who may consider this to be a specialized or difficult to provide service, resulting in failure to identify and treat even those conditions that do not need specialist care.
Changing mindsets
Changing mindsets related to ear and hearing care is crucial for improving access and mitigating the cost of unaddressed hearing loss. To address common myths and misperceptions, WHO has released several information products and resources to raise public awareness. A factsheet for health professionals provides a clear rationale and directions for engagement of primary level service providers in hearing care provision.
- WHD2024 Planning Guide: This planning guide provides a basic and practical framework for any person or organization interested in observing World Hearing Day to raise awareness and promote ear and hearing care (EHC) at national and community levels across the world. The guide is a resource for those working in the field of ear and hearing care. It has been prepared to provide you with the World Hearing Day branding and key messages and introduce you to the resources for the development of your campaign. Use it to get involved with World Hearing Day and encourage others to join the global campaign. By uniting our efforts, we can help make ear and hearing care a worldwide priority issue. Read the Primary ear and hearing care training manual.
PROJECTS: Overview of Global Projects in Specific regions.
STATEMENTS: “Hearing loss has often been referred to as an “invisible disability”, not just because of the lack of visible symptoms, but because it has long been stigmatized in communities and ignored by policy-makers.” Read the full Message from the WHO Director-General on World Hearing Day 2024; March 3rd.
GET INVOLVED!
Here are the ways Governments, Health care providers,Civil society groups, parents, teachers, and physicians can follow:
Governments should take steps to integrate ear and hearing care within primary health care, implement community based approaches that bring services close to people and lead initiatives to raise awareness and mitigate stigma related to hearing loss.
Health care providers must also play their role by ensuring they give due attention and care to people with common ear and hearing problems.
Civil society groups, parents, teachers, and physicians can use WHO’s awareness materials and community resources to inform people about the importance of ear and hearing care.
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