Strategies for prevention of deafness and hearing impairment
PRIMARY PREVENTION
Prevention of major causes of deafness and hearing impairment Major causes include:
- ototoxic drugs: drugs that damage the inner ear
- chronic otitis media: chronic middle ear infection
- noise induced hearing loss
- presbyacusis: hearing impairment associated with ageing.
Up to now, WHO has convened meetings of experts to address the first 3 of these major causes, commissioned a review of treatment options for chronic suppurative otitis media, and produced guidelines on how to deal with noise in the community and in the workplace.
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Prevention of hearing impairment from ototoxic drugs
pdf, 848kb -
Prevention of hearing impairment from chronic otitis media
pdf, 488kb -
Chronic suppurative otitis media: burden of illness
pdf, 817kb -
Prevention of noise-induced hearing loss
pdf, 398kb - Guidelines for community noise
- Occupational exposure to noise: evaluation, prevention and control
Secondary and tertiary prevention
Eliminating or reducing the effects of deafness and hearing impairment The initiative for affordable hearing aids and services in developing countries began in 1998 with a joint workshop with Christoffel-Blindenmission (Christian Blind Mission CBM), on needs and technology assessment, which led to the production of the WHO Guidelines for Hearing Aids and Services for Developing Countries (see below).
A new collaboration WWHearing - World-Wide Hearing Care for Developing Countries has been created to bring together the major stakeholders in this process including policy makers from developing countries, service providers, donors and representatives of the hearing aids industry.