En av tre personer känner någon grad av pinsamhet när de bär en hörapparat
3 mars 2023
Sennheiser-undersökning: starkt socialt stigma när det gäller att bära hörapparater, särskilt jämfört med att bära glasögon.
2 Mars, 2023 – Att bära glasögon anses vara socialt acceptabelt, men inte användningen av hörselhjälpmedel? En ny oberoende studie beställd av Sennheiser har visat att 1 av 3 personer i åldrarna 45 till 70 skulle känna eller känner en grad av pinsamhet när de bär en hörapparat. Detta står i kontrast till att endast 1 av 10 personer känner likadant om att bära glasögon. Undersökningen genomfördes med 2 500 respondenter i åldrarna 45 till 70, cirka 500 vardera från USA, Storbritannien, Tyskland, Frankrike och Australien.
Läs mer i det fullständiga pressmeddelandet på engelska nedan:
On March 3, the World Health Organization (WHO) will mark World Hearing Day and highlight the importance of integrating ear and hearing care. Ear and hearing problems are remarkably common with approximately 1 in 5 people living with some form of hearing loss worldwide. * The World Health Organization warns that by 2030, nearly 630 million people worldwide will have a hearing disability. By 2050, that could jump to 900 million. Currently, 15% of American adults aged 18 and older report some trouble with their hearing. ** Untreated hearing loss in midlife remains the largest modifiable risk factor for dementia.
According to the Hearing Loss Association of America, people with hearing loss wait an average of seven years before seeking help. *** This may also help give context to some additional revelations in the Sennheiser-commissioned study which found that 36% of 45- to 70-year-olds struggle to hear conversations in loud environments, like in a restaurant. Moreover, 39% of this age group have pretended to have heard someone in a conversation but couldn’t hear them properly due to background noise – so they just acted as if they heard the person.
This is a remarkably common issue for 45- to 70-year-olds and new technologies and products are now coming to market to address this. The Sennheiser Conversation Clear Plus, launched in January 2023, is one such product. The true wireless earbuds enhance the voice of the person a user looks at while reducing background volumes from other people and things, making conversations much easier to follow in noisy environments.
“We conducted this survey to draw attention to the social stigma of wearing assisted hearing devices in public or with friends,” says Sonova Consumer Hearing GVP Martin Grieder. “We also want to highlight just how common certain hearing challenges are and hope that these results can help to start conversations and bring more awareness to make this stigma a thing of the past.”
** National Institute on Deafness and other Communication disorders
*** Hearing Loss Association of America
Milan Schlegel