Page 71 - University of Pretoria Research Review 2017
P. 71

         Foreword
Introductory Messages
DEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE
Communicable Diseases
De Wet Swanepoel, Department of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology
An invisible epidemic
PEOPLE AND CONTEXTS
HEALTH AND WELL-BEING
PLANET AND SUSTAINABILITY
Awards
Lead Researchers
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 Hearing loss affects more than a billion people annually and is ranked as the 4th leading contributor to the global burden of disease according to years lived with disability. More than 80% of affected people live in low- and middle- income countries where access to hearing care is mostly inaccessible or unavailable.
For children, hearing loss has far-reaching consequences for speech, language and cognitive development, and is a major barrier to socio-emotional well-being and educational success. In adults, the effects include social isolation, depression, cognitive decline and a three-fold increase in the risk of dementia.
In a project aimed at addressing the inaccessibility of hearing health care, Professor De Wet Swanepoel was awarded a National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant with US co-investigator, Professor David Moore from the Cincinnati Childrens’ Hospital Medical Center.
Professor Swanepoel is based at the Department of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology at UP,
with adjunct positions at the University of Western Australia and the Ear Science Institute, and the University of Texas, Dallas (US). With his research
team, he has capitalised on the growth in information and communication technologies to explore, develop and evaluate innovative service delivery models and applied solutions to improve access to early childhood development and health services, particularly in ear and hearing care.
The NIH grant was awarded in 2017 for a two-year period in the category of mobile health technology
and outcomes in low- and middle-income countries. This research project will leverage the power of smartphones to develop a self-contained solution to the most common forms of mild and moderate hearing loss. Although applicable worldwide, this approach may provide a unique solution to people living in low- and middle-income countries where the world’s highest prevalence of disabling hearing loss is found, but
where services are scarce and unequally distributed. In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, there is less than one audiologist for every one million people.
This project builds on the success of HearZATM, a free downloadable App for smartphones, released as South Africa’s national hearing test in March 2016 from Professor Swanepoel’s laboratory. The App measures a person’s ability to perceive speech in the presence
of background noise accurately with smart features to download data and connect people to hearing health care professionals. To date, more than 35 000 tests have been done and thousands have been identified with hearing loss and connected to care.
The NIH project proposes further enhancements to this tool for increased accuracy. The use of a novel stimulus and test method can improve the sensitivity of the test to several types of hearing loss, all in the same three- minute test time. This allows for the rapid upscaling of hearing loss detection at a fraction of current costs.
In 2017, Professor Swanepoel presented the University’s expert lecture, ‘Rise of an invisible epidemic – fighting hearing loss with technology and connectivity’.
 Gael Kazaz









































































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