35 million Americans suffering from hearing loss
Sergei Kochkin, an American hearing expert, has carried out various studies of hearing impaired Americans and their use of hearing aids (the MarkeTrak Surveys).
American data
Kochkin's 2008 survey (MarkeTrak VIII) found that
- 35 million Americans were hearing impaired, corresponding to 11.3 percent of the US population.
- More than 25 million of them did not have a hearing aid.
- Just 28.5 percent of hearing impaired Americans use hearing aids.
Since the most recent previous survey in 2005, the number of hearing impaired people in the US increased from 31.5 million to 35 million, a nine percent increase in a period of time with just 4.5 percent population growth.
More than 40 million by 2025
The 2005 MarkeTrak VII report projected that the numbers of Americans with hearing loss will increase to 40 million by 2025 and 53 million by 2050.
Hearing loss is common among children in both the US and Canada, according to several studies. In Canada, six babies in 1,000 are born with some degree of hearing loss. The total number of hearing impaired newborn Canadians is approximately 1,000 per year. About one American school aged child in ten suffers from some form of hearing loss.
About MarkeTrak
The MarkeTrak VIII survey included 80,000 members of the National Family Opinion (NFO) panel. Of these, 14,623 hearing impaired individuals were identified. An extensive survey was sent to 3,789 randomly selected hearing instrument owners and 5,500 randomly selected people with hearing loss who have not yet been treated with hearing instruments.
Source:www.hearingreview.com