ABSTRACT
Over 5% of the world’s population, 466 million people, have a disabling hearing loss with the prevalence of hearing loss set to increase due to an aging world population. This together with the limited number of hearing health providers globally exacerbates the gap in demand for hearing care and the availability of hearing care. Furthermore, countries are unlikely to invest in the high costs associated with typical audiometric equipment and the need for skilled persons to conduct audiometry is a major barrier to access. As a result, hearing loss remains largely unidentified in children and adults. However, with the widespread penetration of 1.08 billion smartphones worldwide, mobile health or mHealth hearing health applications are demonstrating promise to overcome barriers of cost and penetration. This chapter considers mHealth projects underway in sub-Saharan Africa for improved hearing health access. These projects include consumer solutions (e.g., hearZa) as well as the clinical use of mobile applications for screening and diagnosis (e.g., hearScreen and hearTest) in the health and education settings.
