World Hearing Day 2026; March 3rd.

FORUM:“From communities to classrooms: hearing care for all children.” World Hearing Day 2026. This year’s theme campaign focuses on two imperatives: (1) Preventing avoidable childhood hearing loss by Ensuring early identification of and care for children with ear or hearing problems. and (2) Schools and communities are natural entry points to reach children, parents, and teachers. By integrating hearing care into school health and child health programmes, we can help children hear, learn, and succeed. Around 90 million children aged 5-19 years, live with hearing loss. Over 60% of childhood hearing loss is preventable through simple, cost-effective public health measures. Among those living with ear diseases or hearing loss, early identification and care are crucial to prevent long-term impacts on development, education, and future opportunities. Integrating systematic screening and early intervention programmes into school health and child health plans can ensure improved outcomes for children living with ear or hearing problems. Globally, over 80% of ear and hearing care needs remain unmet. Unaddressed hearing loss poses an annual cost of nearly US$1 trillion globally. Deeply ingrained societal mis-perceptions and stigmatizing mindsets are key factors that limit efforts for preventing and addressing hearing loss. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that unaddressed hearing loss poses an annual cost of $980 billion each year. This is the cost incurred due to the impact of hearing loss without rehabilitation access, including productivity losses and social exclusion. Empowered individuals can drive change within themselves and in society at large Join Us, Empower yourself and others by taking steps today to ensure good hearing health throughout life. Follow the conservation with the hashtags: #worldhearingday; #hearingcare. #3march.

EVENTS: On March 3rd, to mark the World Hearing Day 2026; The Member States, partners and stakeholders will 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. The event will mark the launch of the WHO-ITU Global standard for safe listening in video game play and sports and the launch of the School module on smart listening, for inclusion into educational programs. It is an opportunity for all of us to make a difference. As stakeholders, partners, and advocates, we can collectively empower ourselves and others. 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 2026. Kindly register to participate to 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 draws 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: 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.

RESEARCH: This paper provides insights into the requirements and expectations of people with hearing loss in engagement with connected devices at home, derived from a questionnaire and a stakeholder workshop, and supported by relevant literature. Whether they like it or not, people with hearing loss may depend on a hearing person or technologies (e.g. hearing aid and voice recognition to text) to communicate and interact with the hearing world. While technology intervention can reduce needs for help from hearing people, it inevitably increases dependency on technologies. This can lead to people with hearing loss feeling out of control, especially when communication technologies do not function as expected, often without any back-up, failsafe or contingency plans. Without reliable technologies – mainstream and/or specialist – to bridge the gap between visual- and voice-based (oral) communications, people with hearing loss are at risk of isolation and exclusion.

Living with Hearing Loss in a Connected Home: White Paper from the UCL Department of Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy (STEaPP)

Induced Hearing Deficit Generates Experimental Paranoia: The development of paranoid reactions was investigated in normal people experiencing a temporary loss of hearing. Research from AAAS Science.

Rescue of autosomal dominant hearing loss by in vivo delivery of mini dCas13X-derived RNA base editor; Research from AAAS Science.

PROJECTS: Overview of Global Projects in Specific regions.

STATEMENTS: "World Hearing Day 2026 is an opportunity for all of us to make a difference. As stakeholders, partners, and advocates, we should collectively act now so no child is left behind due to ear and hearing problems." Read the full Message from the WHO Director-General on World Hearing Day 2026; March 3rd.

COMMUNICATION MATERIALS: Get the poster in English, in Chinese, in Russian, in French, in Spanish, in Arabic. The action tookit and campaign assets are also available.

World Hearing Day 2025; March 3rd.

FORUM: “Changing mindsets: Empower yourself to make ear and hearing care a reality for all!” World Hearing Day 2025. Globally, over 80% of ear and hearing care needs remain unmet. Unaddressed hearing loss poses an annual cost of nearly US$1 trillion globally. Deeply ingrained societal mis-perceptions and stigmatizing mindsets are key factors that limit efforts for preventing and addressing hearing loss. Changing mindsets related to ear and hearing care is crucial to improving access and mitigating the cost of unaddressed hearing loss. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that unaddressed hearing loss poses an annual cost of $980 billion each year. This is the cost incurred due to the impact of hearing loss without rehabilitation access, including productivity losses and social exclusion. This year’s theme builds upon the 2024 focus on changing mindsets towards ear and hearing care. We invite individuals of all ages to empower themselves to ensure healthy ears and hearing for themselves and others, with thIs year theme. By encouraging individuals to recognize the importance of ear and hearing health, this campaign aims to inspire people to change behaviour to protect their hearing from loud sounds and prevent hearing loss, to explain Why regular hearing tests are essential to check their hearing regularly, use hearing devices if needed, and support those living with hearing loss. Empowered individuals can drive change within themselves and in society at large. You can take steps today to ensure good hearing health throughout life. Follow the conservation with the hashtags: #worldhearingday; #hearingcare. #3march.

 

EVENTS: On March 3rd, to mark the World Hearing Day 2025; The Member States, partners and stakeholders will 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. The event will mark the launch of the WHO-ITU Global standard for safe listening in video game play and sports and the launch of the School module on smart listening, for inclusion into educational programs. It is an opportunity for all of us to make a difference. As stakeholders, partners, and advocates, we can collectively empower ourselves and others. 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 2025. Kindly register to participate to 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 draws 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: 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.

RESEARCH: This paper provides insights into the requirements and expectations of people with hearing loss in engagement with connected devices at home, derived from a questionnaire and a stakeholder workshop, and supported by relevant literature. Whether they like it or not, people with hearing loss may depend on a hearing person or technologies (e.g. hearing aid and voice recognition to text) to communicate and interact with the hearing world. While technology intervention can reduce needs for help from hearing people, it inevitably increases dependency on technologies. This can lead to people with hearing loss feeling out of control, especially when communication technologies do not function as expected, often without any back-up, failsafe or contingency plans. Without reliable technologies – mainstream and/or specialist – to bridge the gap between visual- and voice-based (oral) communications, people with hearing loss are at risk of isolation and exclusion.

1. Living with Hearing Loss in a Connected Home: White Paper from the UCL Department of Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy (STEaPP)
2. Induced Hearing Deficit Generates Experimental Paranoia: The development of paranoid reactions was investigated in normal people experiencing a temporary loss of hearing. Research from AAAS Science.
3. Rescue of autosomal dominant hearing loss by in vivo delivery of mini dCas13X-derived RNA base editor; Research from AAAS Science.

PROJECTS: Overview of Global Projects in Specific regions.

STATEMENTS: Read the full Message from the WHO Director-General on World Hearing Day 2025; March 3rd.

World Hearing Day 2023; March 3rd.

FORUM: “Changing mindsets: Let’s make ear and hearing care a reality for all!” World Hearing Day 2024. Globally, over 80% of ear and hearing care needs remain unmet. Unaddressed hearing loss poses an annual cost of nearly US$1 trillion globally. Deeply ingrained societal mis-perceptions and stigmatizing mindsets are key factors that limit efforts for preventing and addressing hearing loss. Changing mindsets related to ear and hearing care is crucial to improving access and mitigating the cost of unaddressed hearing loss. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that unaddressed hearing loss poses an annual cost of $980 billion each year. This is the cost incurred due to the impact of hearing loss without rehabilitation access, including productivity losses and social exclusion. On March 3rd, the World Hearing Day 2024 will focus on overcoming the challenges posed by societal mis-perceptions and stigmatizing mindsets through awareness-raising and information-sharing, targeted at the public and health care providers. Follow the conservation with the hashtags: #worldhearingday; #hearingcare. #3march.

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:

- WHO issues guidance to improve access to hearing care in low- and middle-income settings.

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.

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.

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.

World Hearing Day 2022; March 3rd

 FORUM: To hear for life, listen with care! World Hearing Day 2022.

Over 1 billion people aged 12 to 35 years risk losing their hearing due to prolonged and excessive exposure to loud music and other recreational sounds. This can have devastating consequences for their physical and mental health, education, and employment prospects.

Ahead of World Hearing Day 2022, under the theme To hear for life, listen with care! WHO has issued a new international standard for safe listening at venues and events. The standard applies to places and activities where amplified music is played.


“Millions of teenagers and young people are at risk of hearing loss due to the unsafe use of personal audio devices and exposure to damaging sound levels at venues such as nightclubs, bars, concerts and sporting events,” said Dr Bente Mikkelsen, WHO Director for the Department for Noncommunicable Diseases.


She added: “The risk is intensified as most audio devices, venues and events do not provide safe listening options and contribute to the risk of hearing loss. The new WHO standard aims to better safeguard young people as they enjoy their leisure activities.”


New recommendations to limit risk of hearing loss


The Global standard for safe listening at venues and events highlights six recommendations for implementation to ensure that venues and events limit the risk of hearing loss to their patrons while preserving high-quality sound and an enjoyable listening experience. The six recommendations are:


(1) a maximum average sound level of 100 decibels

(2) live monitoring and recording of sound levels using calibrated equipment by designated staff

(3) optimizing venue acoustics and sound systems to ensure enjoyable sound quality and safe listening

(4) making personal hearing protection available to audiences including instructions on use

(5) access to quiet zones for people to rest their ears and decrease the risk of hearing damage; and

(6) provision of training and information to staff.


The new standard was developed under WHO’s Make Listening Safe initiative which seeks to improve listening practices especially among young people, drawing on the latest evidence and consultations with a range of stakeholders including experts from WHO, government, industry, consumers, and civil society.


Hearing loss due to loud sounds is permanent but preventable

Exposure to loud sounds causes temporary hearing loss or tinnitus. But prolonged or repeated exposure can lead to permanent hearing damage, resulting in irreversible hearing loss. Young people can better protect their hearing by:
- keeping the volume down on personal audio devices
- using well-fitted, and if possible, noise-cancelling earphones/headphones
- wearing earplugs at noisy venues
- getting regular hearing check-ups

Advocating for the new global standard


WHO encourages governments to develop and enforce legislation for safe listening and raise awareness of the risks of hearing loss. The private sector should include WHO’s recommendations for safe listening features in their products, venues, and events. To motivate behaviour change, civil society organizations, parents, teachers, and physicians can educate young people to practice safe listening habits.


“Governments, civil society and private sector entities such as manufacturers of personal audio devices, sound systems, and video gaming equipment as well as owners and managers of entertainment venues and events have an important role to play in advocating for the new global standard,” said Dr Ren Minghui, WHO Assistant Director-General. “We must work together to promote safe listening practices, especially among young people.”

Note to editors

In addition to the new global standard released today, other key technical documents include the Be Healthy, Be Mobile. A handbook on mSafeListening and Media brief on #safelistening.


In 2019, WHO launched the global standard for safe listening personal audio devices and systems. This standard is currently being implemented in some commonly marketed products where it provides users with the option to monitor and moderate their listening behaviour including sound levels and exposure time

World Hearing Day 2021, March 03

 "Hearing care for all" is the theme of World Hearing Day 2021. World Health Organization

WHO: 1 in 4 people projected to have hearing problems by 2050

The report, launched ahead of World Hearing Day, 3 March, underlines the need to rapidly step up efforts, Note to Editors World HearingDay 2021 Launch of the World Report on Hearing

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