Topic: Public health approaches to addressing adult-onset hearing loss
Date: Monday 8 August 2022
Time: 11am – 1pm
Location: Hybrid – in person at AHH Level 1 Lecture Theatre and Zoom (presenters in person)
Presenters:
Prof Frank Lin – Director of the Cochlear Centre for Hearing & Public Health, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health
Prof Bamini Gopinath – Cochlear Chair in Hearing & Health, Macquarie University

Prof Lin and Prof Gopinath will provide their perspectives on what is needed to inform public health policy and practice to address the increasing burden of adult-onset hearing loss.

Register via Eventbrite

Registration: Free public seminar
Register by Thursday 4 August – please select in person ticket or zoom ticket.
If you have accessibility requirements, please contact Louise.Dodd@mq.edu.au to organise.

Agenda:
11:00am – 11:05am Welcome and setting the scene (Catherine McMahon)
11.05am – 11.10am Privileging the voice of a person with hearing loss (Katie Neal)
11:10am – 11:30am Transformative Public Health Strategies to Address Hearing Loss in Older Adults (Frank Lin)
11:30am – 11:50am Reframing Adult-Onset Hearing Loss as a Public Health Challenge (Bamini Gopinath)
11:50am – 12:20pm Panel discussion (Moderator: Catherine McMahon Panel: Frank Lin, Bamini Gopinath, Katie Neal, policy maker)
12:20pm – 12:30pm Call to action & close
12:30pm – 1.00pm Light lunch & networking

Titles, Abstract and bios:

Title: Transformative Public Health Strategies to Address Hearing Loss in Older Adults
Abstract: The Cochlear Center for Hearing and Public Health is a research center at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, USA focused on what can be done now to address hearing loss in older adults at scale through transformative public health strategies. The Center works across five core areas including producing public health evidence, building public awareness, developing new care models, informing healthcare policy, and testing new hearing technologies. Two active initiatives will be highlighted during this presentation. The first initiative is the Know Your Hearing Number campaign that seeks to establish the four-frequency PTA as the universal hearing metric that consumers use to understand their hearing and engage with hearing technology. The second initiative involves ongoing health policy efforts in the United States on over-the-counter hearing aid regulations and Medicare insurance coverage of hearing care.

Prof Frank Lin
Bio: Dr Frank R. Lin, M.D., Ph.D., is the director of the Cochlear Center for Hearing and Public Health and a Professor of Otolaryngology, Medicine, Mental Health, and Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins. Dr Lin is trained as an otologist with medical and surgical expertise in the management of hearing loss while his research is focused on studying questions at the interface of hearing loss, gerontology, and public health.

Title: Reframing Adult-Onset Hearing Loss as a Public Health Challenge
Abstract: Despite the high prevalence of adults-onset hearing loss, ear and hearing care is poorly integrated into systems of health in Australia and globally. We are currently working to change this through our program of research by applying a public health lens to hearing loss in adults. This includes projects that are improving the capture and use of robust contemporary data. Several examples will be provided including projects initiated in 2022 such as the very first Australian Eye and Ear Health Survey and the Hearing impairment in Adults: a Longitudinal Outcomes Study (HALOS). There will also be a focus on initiatives that aim to develop and implement evidence-based strategies to mitigate the negative impacts of adult-onset hearing loss and enhance the uptake of hearing health services, such as the Hearing Impairment Data Infrastructure (HEIDI) Study. The coordination and partnership among a range of key stakeholders underlies all these initiatives and this will be highlighted, as this is critical to ensuring the inclusion of adult-onset hearing loss as part of a broader public health strategy.

Prof Bamini Gopinath
Bio: Professor Bamini Gopinath is the inaugural Cochlear Chair in Hearing and Health. In this role she leads the Public Health and Policy Pillar of MU Hearing. She is an epidemiologist who has been actively involved in developing and conducting numerous population health studies. To date she has co-authored over 240 peer-reviewed papers, several of which have been in high-ranking medical and health journals (with over 5800 citations to her name). Her publications have attracted >400 media stories with an estimated audience of 210 million people worldwide. Using large population datasets Bamini has provided novel community-based evidence on the health determinants and health outcomes associated with a sensory loss and disability. Her ongoing research in the public health field aims to translate key study findings into health policy and practice, with the intention of targeting current gaps that exist in Australian healthcare.