Ear and Hearing Care Workforce: Current Status and its Implications

Abstract

This study aimed to provide comprehensive global evidence on the availability of ear and hearing care (EHC) professionals and real-life examples that showcase the impact of workforce shortages on the workload faced by existing professionals. Six sources of data were used to estimate availability of EHC workforce: a scoping literature review, World Health Organization (WHO) National Health Workforce Accounts platform, WHO Member States survey and regional consultations, hearing care organizations survey, and official government statistics. EHC professionals' workload undertaking common interventions was estimated through the WHO workload indicators of staffing need human resource management tool. With data on otolaryngologists from 138, audiologists from 102, speech and language therapists from 124, and teachers of the deaf from 86 countries, this study revealed large gaps in availability of EHC cadres. The majority of countries in the African region had less than one professional in each cadre per million in comparison with most European countries having up to 50 times higher densities. Workload indicators of staffing need calculations revealed the challenging workload faced by existing EHC professionals, with ratios between existing and required staff of 0.01-0.86. There is an enormous shortage of EHC professionals and urgent actions are needed to ensure sufficient and equitable access to services. Task sharing, a novel approach for improving access to hearing care alongside the development of new cadres, can be a vital strategy in overcoming the shortage of highly qualified providers in many settings, even in well-resourced health systems, to facilitate equitable access to required EHC services.