Hearing loss isn’t just an inconvenience that comes with getting older.
It’s a critical public health issue that is now the focus of national and international initiatives coming from the National Academies, the White House, and the World Health Organization.
This global attention to hearing loss is the result of our growing understanding of the impact that hearing loss - present in nearly two-thirds of older adults - can have on the risk of dementia, cognitive decline, greater health care costs, and other adverse outcomes.
Implementing strategies to treat hearing loss, which are vastly underused around the world, could help reduce the risk of these outcomes and optimize the health of older adults.
As the only global research institution focused exclusively on issues related to hearing loss and public health in older adults, Cochlear Center researchers concentrate on what can be done now across five core areas to address these issues at scale.
