The hearing-impaired population is huge and growing. But a surprisingly small percentage of people who need hearing aids choose to use them.
And it’s not a problem confined to folks in their 70s and 80s. There’s a much larger percentage of people with hearing loss in their prime working years than you might think. Forty percent of people with hearing loss are under 65. In the U.S., nine million people in the 35-to-54 age bracket have hearing loss, nearly a third of the total hearing-impaired population in the U.S.
The mystery that hearing aid manufacturers are desperate to solve is why so few of these people get help for their problem. Eighty percent of the people who could benefit from hearing aids don’t use them. And in the 35-to-54 age bracket, 90 percent who need hearing aids don’t use them.
The result is global demand for hearings aids that is growing much more slowly than you would think, especially as the baby-boom generation starts moving into the age brackets that see the fastest increases in hearing loss. It means millions of people out there are suffering needlessly.
There are plenty of theories about why so few people use hearing aids. Reasons include the stigma that is still attached to the use of hearing aids, the high cost, difficulties programming and fitting them, and the time and energy it takes to learn how to get the most out of them. I will explore all these issues in future postings.
Personally, however, I think the low acceptance of hearing aids also has more to do with the poor marketing skills of the hearing aid manufacturers. But that’s a topic for another day as well.