Hearing International is an International Non-governmental Organization established in 1992 as a 501(c)3 public charity. It is based in the United States of America and officially registered in the State of Colorado. The organization was established to connect hearing professionals and hearing device manufacturers around the world to provide technical and medical know-how to consumer groups and NGOs, implementing world standards in hearing health at a grass-root level.
About
Who We Are
Problem:
Good hearing health is of paramount importance in determining quality of life. The World Health Organization (WHO) recently estimated that by the year 2050, 2.5 billion people will be affected with hearing loss, with 700 million requiring some form of hearing rehabilitation. The WHO estimates that 50% of hearing loss could be preventable with appropriate intervention. Treatable causes include congenital or acquired hearing loss, otitis media, ototoxic drugs, noise exposure, as well as the effects of chronic ear disease, aging, general ill health and environmental hazards.
While all countries will be impacted, due to the pervasive effects of infection, aging and noise pollution, people living in the developing world are more severely affected and rehabilitation is less available. Any degree of hearing loss takes a toll on one’s perceived quality of life. Even mild loss decreases one’s ability to communicate in the absence of amplification. At severe to profound levels, human communication becomes severely compromised and the ability to sustain one’s livelihood and social interactions becomes difficult. Even in advanced nations, rehabilitation is often difficult for many reasons including cost; however, in developing nations access to health care, surgical procedures and/or hearing devices are often more difficult from both access to trained providers and hearing devices as well as cost.
Protocol:
Hearing International was established by a group of hearing scientists, hearing health providers and hearing device manufacturers from many parts of the world, working at many different levels of intervention. Hearing International seeks to improve hearing health particularly focused in developing countries. The overarching goal of the Society is to help advise, train and support local centers in developing countries, insuring they are using cutting-edge levels of international standards for hearing health care. Hearing International does not provide direct patient services, as visiting surgery or purchase of hearing amplification devices; instead, any inquiry is referred to local Center providers for patient intervention. By helping upgrade Centers and providers through educational support, Center professional members can then, in turn, take their knowledge to other providers in their country. This will further expand the number of cutting-edge providers locally, while not relying on temporary missionary base resources for local care.
Results:
Hearing International’s approach has now been used successfully over the last three decades with the development of locally trained cutting-edge providers equipped with the latest medical knowledge and surgical techniques. Centers today have become concentrated in Asia and Southeast Asia, taking on a new emphasis on public health, for example newborn screening, with more local providers practicing and educating their personnel further in modern techniques. A notable example of this has occurred in the Philippines in which Hearing International’s two Centers have been instrumental in gaining approval of a governmental initiative supporting universal newborn hearing screening program that is currently be implemented in remote locations throughout the country.
