Every year on March 3, the World Heath Organization (WHO) celebrates World Hearing Day – an awareness raising initiative designed to draw attention to hearing loss and the importance of prevention, screening and rehabilitation. This year’s theme is ‘Action for hearing loss: make a sound investment’. The theme draws attention to the need for healthcare systems to treat hearing care with the same seriousness as other conditions. It echoes similar points from the Spend to Save report, which illustrates that investing in treating hearing loss can improve physical and mental health, and thus improve overall healthcare expenditures.
In celebration of World Hearing Day, the Ida Institute will launch a social media campaign to raise awareness about the importance of hearing. The campaign draws on the statistics that 360 million people live with disabling hearing loss, and that a person waits an average of seven years before taking action.
This follows on from previous efforts Ida has led to support World Hearing Day. In 2014, we ran a competition to find a new logo for World Hearing Day. The winning design was submitted by a team at the China Rehabilitation Research Center for Deaf Children.
Visit the WHO website for more information and stay tuned to Ida for the launch of our campaign.