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Have You Heard About the Importance of Hearing Health? (posted May 21, 2025).png)
By Adam Behnke, Communications Specialist for Brown County Public Health
Hearing is one of our five commonly understood senses, along with sight, touch, taste, and smell. Hearing allows us to connect to the world around us, perceive our environment, and interact with other people. Research shows that hearing health has a significant impact on overall health. Hearing loss is associated with several negative effects, including balance problems, loneliness, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cognitive decline. This issue of the Healthy Herald comes during National Speech-Language-Hearing Month and aims to "turn up the volume” about the importance of communication health, specifically hearing screenings, and the professionals who make it possible.
What Is Speech-Language-Hearing Month?
The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) established National Speech-Language-Hearing Month in 1972 to help increase public understanding of communication disorders and the crucial role that speech-language pathologists (SLPs) and audiologists play in helping people of all ages overcome challenges related to speech, language, voice, and hearing. The observance in 2025 comes during ASHA’s 100th anniversary, a major milestone for an organization that was founded with just 25 people that has grown to more than 234,000 members today.
Why Communication Health Matters
At some point in their lives, an estimated 5 percent to 10 percent of Americans experience a communication disorder, which affects how they talk, hear, or understand things. For children, untreated speech or hearing issues can hurt how they do at school, how they get along with people their own age, and how they feel about themselves overall. Early intervention is the key to helping kids do their best at school and feel their best in all areas of life.
For adults, it’s a similar story. Healthy hearing provides a number of both physical and mental benefits:
- Maintain relationships. Good hearing means you can listen during conversations, communicate better, and avoid being isolated from social situations and the people that you love.
- Better memory and brain function. In a 2020 study published in The Lancet, wearing hearing aids for hearing loss was the largest factor protecting people over age 50 from mental decline.
- Independence and security. Being able to hear the world around you keeps you aware of your surroundings and better able to keep yourself and your loved ones safe.
- Save thousands of dollars every year. Hearing loss, if left untreated, makes you 50 percent more likely to need a hospital stay. It also makes you 44 percent more likely to need to go back to the hospital within 30 days of the initial visit. A review of health care data by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found older adults with untreated hearing loss paid a lot more in total health care costs compared to those who don’t have hearing loss. Over a decade, the average difference was $22,434 per person!
- Increase job security and earning potential. Hearing health keeps you connected with co-workers and clients and makes it more likely you’ll earn more money than those with untreated hearing loss. On average, those with hearing loss make 25% less than those with healthy hearing.
Hearing loss can happen slowly, over time, and it's important to act as soon as you (or a family member) notices that your hearing may be getting worse. The experts at the Hear Well Campaign -- a group of consumer organizations, hearing professional organizations, and hearing aid makers -- have created a list of symptoms that may mean it’s time to have your hearing checked:
- Occasionally thinking others are mumbling or speaking too softly
- Having trouble hearing over the phone
- Inappropriately responding to others after misunderstanding what was said
- Frequently being told that your TV or radio is too loud
- Constant roaring, ringing, or hissing in your ears
- Finding it difficult to hear or understand conversations with more than two people
- Needing others to repeat themselves regularly
- Avoiding crowded places and restaurants because of difficulty hearing
Listen to your ears! A simple hearing test should be added to your health care routine, just like an annual physical, dental cleaning, or mammogram/pap test.
Hear Well has an online hearing screening tool; a simple list of ten questions that are easy to answer and will let you know if your hearing is in the range of normal, mild to moderate difficulty, or significant difficulty. You can talk about your score when you see a hearing professional, like an audiologist.
The Role of Audiologists
The American Academy of Audiology says an audiologist can help diagnose, treat, and help manage a hearing or balance condition. They are the primary health-care professionals who check, diagnose, treat, and manage hearing loss and balance disorders in people of all ages. They usually have a doctor’s degree and must have a license or be registered to practice anywhere in the U.S. You can find audiologists in all kinds of settings, including hospitals, clinics, schools, universities and private practices.
The American Academy of Audiology has an online database that connects potential patients with an audiologist near them. Depending on the case, the following may be recommended:
- Hearing aids
- Assistive listening and alerting devices
- Cochlear implants
- Telephone and listening devices
- Aural hearing rehabilitation
- Working with other physicians and physical therapists for dizziness management
Brown County Public Health’s Support of Hearing Health
The Brown County Public Health Hearing and Vision Program focuses on early detection of hearing and vision concerns for students within Brown County public and parochial schools. Last year, the program conducted 324 targeted hearing screenings for students in 4K, kindergarten and 1st grade at schools across Brown County. Based on the results of the screenings, public health then suggests some students see a health care provider for treatment.
Brown County Public Health screens for hearing problems in three different ways:
- Audiometer
- A complex instrument that measures various aspects of a person's ability to hear.
- Otoacoustic Emissions (OAE) Testing
- Checks part of the inner ear’s response to sound. The test is mostly done on very young children who may not be able to respond to behavioral hearing tests.
- Otoscope
- Handheld instrument used to examine the ear canal and eardrum. Using light and magnification, the otoscope makes it easier for a health care professional to see problems like infections, a foreign object, or hearing loss.
The Brown County Public Health Hearing and Vision Program is coordinated by Jennifer Dixon, RN, BSN. She can be reached by phone at (920) 448-6437, except during the months of July and August.
HEAR Wisconsin’s 99 Years of Impact
Brown County Public Health also partners with HEAR Wisconsin to make its hearing screenings far-reaching and sustainable. Based in West Allis, Wisconsin, HEAR Wisconsin is a nonprofit founded in 1926 that helps infants, children, and adults with hearing loss.
Since 2021, HEAR Wisconsin has been able to travel across Wisconsin using its Mobile Audiology Clinic (MAC), which is a large, climate-controlled trailer full of specialized equipment that underserved communities often don’t have. The MAC typically visits the Green Bay area to provide free hearing screenings for schoolchildren once a year.
Communication disorders, like hearing loss, are among the most common conditions in children and adults, affecting tens of millions of people in the United States alone. Left untreated, these disorders can hurt a person’s ability to succeed in school, in social circles, and at work. In short, their overall quality of life suffers significantly.
Let’s recognize the needs of those among us who have hearing, speech, and language disorders, and help spread the word that with early intervention, successful treatment is possible. Even if not addressed early, treatment at any age or any stage can make a positive impact!
Stay Healthy, Brown County!
Resources
https://www.asha.org/national-speech-language-hearing-month/
https://www.hearing.org/hearing-health/
https://www.hearing.org/hearing-screening/
https://www.mayoclinichealthsystem.org/hometown-health/speaking-of-health/help-is-available-for-speech-and-language-disorders
https://slponline.ithaca.edu/speech-language-hearing-month
https://www.cahelp.org/cahelpenews/national_speech__language__and_hearing_month
https://kidscarehomehealth.com/speech-lanauage-hearing-month/
https://www.healthyhearing.com/report/52437-The-complex-link-between-depression-and-hearing-loss
https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2018/patients-with-untreated-hearing-loss-incur-higher-health-care-costs-over-time
https://journals.lww.com/thehearingjournal/fulltext/2013/02001/hearing_loss_linked_to_unemployment,_lower_income.2.aspx
https://www.audiology.org/consumers-and-patients/what-is-an-audiologist/
Wisconsin Legislature: 632.895(16)