Intelligent Earable Systems for Equitable Health

Abstract

Health inequities often show up in the global health setting, where the country a person is born in has a huge impact on their ability to access even basic medical resources, like hearing care [1]. This lack of access is often made challenging due to the prohibitively high prices of medical devices, which cannot be afforded by most of the world. Specifically, ear diagnostic hardware, and more broadly audiology as a field, has not seen significant advances in making medical devices more affordable or accessible. As a result, this has led to the continued use of outdated diagnostic equipment that still costs thousands of dollars. At the same time, mobile computing technologies have advanced substantially over the last two decades since the introduction of the first iPhone in 2007. Today, even budget smartphones and earphones with incredible economies of scale incorporate high-quality microphones and speakers that are ubiquitous around the world.