Announcing the 2018 Grant Recipients
In response to the RFP 2018, Stigma-related factors influencing the uptake of hearing aids, the IRC received eight great project proposal. This is a relatively small number compared to previous calls, but this may simply reflect that the topic has had too little attention previously. It is one of the goals of IRC to identify these under-studied domains in the field of Audiology, and this seems to be one of them.
We, the IRC, are pleased to announce that the grant winner of the 2018 call is Professor Louise Hickson and her team at the University of Queensland, Australia. They excellently presented to proposal, entitled: ”To tell or not to tell? The stigma experiences of adults with hearing impairment and their families”.
The project started on March 1st, 2019. In her words, this research project will provide a first-of-its-kind understanding of stigma in hearing impairment. This understanding has the potential to inform adults with hearing impairment, family members, hearing care professionals, referring practitioners (e.g., GPs, ENTs, Geriatricians), and hearing device manufacturers about how to counsel adults with hearing difficulties and their families about the pros and cons of acknowledging hearing loss in everyday life.
The team is thrilled to have this opportunity to undertake this research project. We believe it will make a valuable contribution to the field and are excited to get started with this research in 2019!
A key focus of our team’s research program involves exploring the impact of hearing loss in adults on their quality of life and how and why they take steps to get help for their hearing difficulties. We had recently been noticing that stigma related to hearing loss and hearing aids kept appearing in our data as a possible barrier to help-seeking (both within interviews with people with hearing impairment and their families, and within our video-recorded audiology appointment interactions). These observations highlighted to us the significance of stigma in the everyday lives of adults with hearing impairment and their families. We were, therefore, keen to explore the notion of stigma further in our future research.
A key focus of our team’s research program involves exploring the impact of hearing loss in adults on their quality of life and how and why they take steps to get help for their hearing difficulties. We had recently been noticing that stigma related to hearing loss and hearing aids kept appearing in our data as a possible barrier to help-seeking (both within interviews with people with hearing impairment and their families, and within our video-recorded audiology appointment interactions). These observations highlighted to us the significance of stigma in the everyday lives of adults with hearing impairment and their families. We were, therefore, keen to explore the notion of stigma further in our future research.
The IRC is once again very pleased to have received excellent proposals from globally leading researchers We sincerely appreciate the effort put into these proposals. We are pleased to stimulate the relevant research fields, both with potential funding, but also in providing topics of interest to the Industry, that consequently will lead to greater impact of the conducted research