Education & Capacity-Building
We’re committed to advancing hearing health, including education and training.
We engage in high-level partnerships with global health leaders on hearing health issues. We’re also building capacity through academic relationships, training and curricula. We sponsor academic research in partnership with leading institutions around the world, and conduct research of our own, including effectiveness studies on community-based hearing healthcare intervention.
Starkey Hearing Foundation provides hearing health training for community health workers, allied health professionals, and even members of the public, with programs ranging from three-day introductory basic education to full-year, accredited, professional ear and hearing health training.
Starkey Hearing Institute
To help address the critical shortage of hearing healthcare professionals in the developing world, we launched Starkey Hearing Institute, a program of Starkey Hearing Foundation, in Zambia in 2016. With enrollment near capacity, Starkey Hearing Institute has now graduated 67 students representing 16 countries since its inception. Inspired by this success, Starkey Hearing Foundation is committed to opening two additional institutes in the next five years.
Starkey Hearing Institute provides full-year, accredited, professional ear and hearing health training. The curriculum includes WFA Community-Based Hearing Healthcare Program, International Hearing Society, World Health Organization, The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Queen Margaret University and the University Teaching Hospital in Zambia.
Graduates also complete intensive hands-on training in direct care delivery and the WFA®️ community-based hearing healthcare program model. Collectively, our efforts support one of the largest clinical and community-based hearing healthcare training operations in the world.
Academic Partnerships
To build knowledge of hearing loss and hearing healthcare globally, we build academic partnerships with leading researchers and institutions around the world.
We sponsor academic research, including demographic and epidemiological studies of hearing loss. We partner with leading academics on effectiveness studies of community-based hearing healthcare intervention, as well as mainstreaming of new hearing aid users as they build skills and adapt to hearing in daily life. Our academic partnerships deepen our understanding of hearing loss and hearing healthcare access around the world.
Our Model
WFA® Community-Based Hearing Healthcare
We’re changing lives.
Based on years of missions to more than 100 countries, we honed a model that is community-based and sustainable – and sets the Starkey Hearing Foundation apart. This model is the backbone of the large-scale, systemic change we are championing into the future, in addition to global partnerships and advocacy.
The WFA® Community-Based Hearing Healthcare Model is now taught at the first Starkey Hearing Institute in Zambia, with additional institutes to follow in the upcoming years. It is simple, sustainable, and scalable.
According to the World Health Organization, 466 million people have disabling hearing loss with the greatest prevalence among people in developing countries. Unfortunately, less than three percent of these individuals can afford hearing aids or even have access to the care they need.
We are working tirelessly to change this by building global partnerships, advocating for hearing health, and cultivating the next generation of hearing healthcare professionals from the communities and countries that need them most.
Continuous Action Model
WFA® Community-Based Hearing Healthcare
Starkey Hearing Foundation’s international Wide-Frequency Audibility® Community-Based Hearing Healthcare Program utilizes a proven action model to empower local teams in providing basic ear care and hearing aids to individuals in need.
Here's how our simple, sustainable, and scalable model works:
Patient Identification
- Identify and train community-based health workers and partners.
- Conduct community outreach and provide primary ear-care services.
- Identify and assess potential hearing loss patients.
- Identify and assess potential hearing aid candidates.
- Take ear impressions and create custom earmolds.
Hearing Fittings
- Prepare/provide hearing aids and custom earmolds for qualified patients.
- Assess and fit hearing aid(s) to patients using WFA fitting method.
- Counsel and train hearing aid recipients on proper use, care and operation of hearing aids.
- Counsel and train teachers, student ambassadors and family members to support hearing aid recipients.
- Provide patients with batteries for their hearing aids.
- Provide AfterCare information to all hearing aid recipients, detailing where to go and who to contact for follow-up services.
- Train and retrain local program teams on quality AfterCare and strengthening all ongoing program activities.
AfterCare Program
- Provide monthly AfterCare services at a central location.
- Provide ongoing AfterCare to hearing aid beneficiaries, including access to additional care, such as counseling.
- Provide batteries and free repair or replacement of hearing aids as needed.
- Monitor and evaluate program delivery and ongoing performance of the local team.
- Provide continuing education for team members and all associated community-based healthcare workers.
- Identify new hearing aid candidates for future Phase One.
- Collect and analyze data to continue to improve our services and to support our global advocacy work.