Abstract
BackgroundHearing loss (HL) affects 466 million people of all ages worldwide, with a rapidly increasing prevalence, and therefore requires appropriate public health policies. Multi-disciplinary approaches that make use of eHealth services can build the evidence to influence public policy. The European Union-funded project EVOTION developed a platform that is fed with real-time data from hearing aids, a smartphone, and additional clinical data and makes public health policy recommendations based on hypothetical public health policy-making models, a big data engine and decision support system. The present study aimed to evaluate this platform as a new tool to support policy-making for HL.MethodsA total of 23 key stakeholders in the United Kingdom, Croatia, Bulgaria and Poland evaluated the platform according to the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats methodology.ResultsThere was consensus that the platform, with its advanced technology as well as the amount and variety of data that it can collect, has huge potential to inform commissioning decisions, public health regulations and affect healthcare as a whole. To achieve this, several limitations and external risks need to be addressed and mitigated. Differences between countries highlighted that the EVOTION tool should be used and managed according to local constraints to maximise success.ConclusionOverall, the EVOTION platform can equip HL policy-makers with a novel data-driven tool that can support public health policy-making for HL in the future.
Highlights
Hearing loss as a public health issue Hearing loss (HL) affects approximately 466 million people worldwide, i.e. 6.1% of the world’s population, with the total number of people with HL estimated to rise to over 900 million by 2050 [1]
We demonstrated the analytical methods we had so far applied to the data and how these methods are being implemented in the EVOTION big data analytics (BDA) engine
Common SWOT themes The SWOTs of the EVOTION platform that were identified in more than one of the workshops are summarized in Fig. 4 and explained here in detail with examples
Summary
Hearing loss as a public health issue Hearing loss (HL) affects approximately 466 million people worldwide, i.e. 6.1% of the world’s population, with the total number of people with HL estimated to rise to over 900 million by 2050 [1]. It is crucial that countries develop long-term evidence-based PH programmes and policies to raise awareness for HL and for HL prevention, early diagnosis and effective interventions in order to support healthcare systems and to promote the social inclusion of the hearing-impaired population.
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