Hearing Facts
- Hearing loss affects more people in the USA than heart disease, cancer, tuberculosis, venereal disease, and kidney disease combined. One of every 10 people is affected to some degree.
- In Europe, 70 million are hearing-impaired, and in North America the figure is estimated at around 30 million. In developing countries the burden of hearing impairment is estimated to be twice as large as in developed countries. Untreated ear infections are a major contributing factor to this problem.
- Despite the magnitude of the problem and the millions of people affected, hearing studies attract less than 1% of the dollars spent on medical research.
- The average midlevel-quality hearing aid costs $1,600 per ear. Most health insurance does not cover hearing aids.
- Hearing aids are better than ever. Many hearing-impaired people would benefit from using them, but only one out of five who need hearing aids actually has one.
- By collecting used hearing aids and re-casing, reconditioning,
and recalibrating them to fit the exact needs of those
we help, our Lions Hearing Aid Bank has provided charitable support valued at more than $2.4 million to hard-of-hearing individuals in the Pacific Northwest. - A European study - the Maastricht Report by the SIHI-study group at The University of Maastricht and published in 1999 - shows that hearing loss is one of the disabilities that can be treated most inexpensively and with the greatest benefit.
- Most cases of hearing loss result from injury to the hair cells in the inner ear (cochlea) due to noise, aging, toxic substances, or genetic factors. Each inner ear has 30,000 hair cells. One baby in a thousand is born without hair cells