Research
Reports

The compelling evidence linking the treatment of hearing loss and the prevention of dementia

In December 2020, the Hearing Care Industry Association (HCIA) commissioned Mark Laureyns of the Thomas More University College in Antwerp, to write a paper examining the rapidly evolving research linking the treatment of midlife hearing loss and the prevention of dementia in later life.

Dementia, Hearing Loss and Hearing Care: Saving Australia’s Minds provides compelling, peer-reviewed evidence for early hearing care intervention to prevent dementia. A key finding of the latest research finds that hearing loss in mid-life is the largest modifiable risk factor for age-related dementia.

Dementia is the second leading cause of death amongst Australians and the leading cause of death amongst Australian women. With an ageing population and increasing costs of providing aged care, now is the time to seize the opportunity for a preventative hearing health strategy that will address the link between age-related hearing loss and dementia.

Far from being a trivial irritation, hearing loss and its early treatment would prevent more dementia at a population level than addressing traumatic brain injury, hypertension, alcohol abuse, diabetes and obesity combined.

Download a full copy of the report:

Dementia, Hearing Loss and Hearing Care: Saving Australia’s Minds – March 2021

HCIA commissioned Deloitte Access Economics to update the 2017 Social and Economic Costs of Hearing Loss in Australia and calculate a new eligibility for the HSP for vulnerable Australians. The report finds that more than 8000 financially vulnerable people could return to the workforce under proposed changes to the national Hearing Services Program (HSP).

The report also found the number of Australians with hearing loss is 3.95 million people in 2019-20 – or 15.3% of the population – a 9.7% increase from 3.6 million people in 2017.

Download a full copy of the report:

HCIA Hearing for Life – The Value of Hearing Services for Vulnerable Australians – March 2020.

HCIA believes good policy should be evidence-based. This is why it funded the Social and Economic Cost of Hearing Loss in Australia – June 2017 report prepared by Deloitte Access Economics.

In 2006, Access Economics quantified the impact and estimated impact of both the financial costs and the loss of wellbeing from hearing loss in Australia in 2005. The Hearing Care Industry Association (HCIA) commissioned Deloitte Access Economics to update this report for 2017, with the intention of raising awareness of the economic cost of hearing impairment in Australia and to inform policy making.

This is important to help ensure that available resources are directed towards the most effective preventive and therapeutic interventions.

Download a full copy of the report:

Social and Economic Cost of Hearing Loss in Australia – June 2017.