Mohr, P. E., Feldman, J. J., Dunbar, J. L., McConkey-Robbins, A., Niparko, J. K., Rittenhouse, R. K., & Skinner, M. W. (2000). The societal costs of severe to profound hearing loss in the United States. International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care, 16(4), 1120-1135.
Objective: Severe to profound hearing impairment affects one-half to three-quarters of a million Americans. To function in a hearing society, hearing-impaired persons require specialized educational, social services, and other resources. The primary purpose of this study was to provide a comprehensive, national, and recent estimate of the economic burden of hearing impairment.
Methods: The researchers constructed a cohort-survival model to estimate the lifetime costs of hearing impairment. Data for the model were derived principally from the analyses of secondary data sources including the National Health Interview Survey Hearing Loss and Disability Supplements, the Department of Education's National Longitudinal Transition Study, and Gallaudet University's Annual Survey of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Youth. These analyses were supplemented by a review of the literature and consultation with a four-member expert panel.
Results: Severe to profound hearing loss is expected to cost society $297,000 over the lifetime of an individual. Most of these losses are due to reduced work productivity, although the use of special education resources among children contributes an additional 21%. Lifetime costs for those with prelingual onset exceed $1 million.
Conclusions: Results indicate that an additional $4.6 billion will be spent over the lifetime of persons who acquired their impairment in 1998. The particularly high costs associated with prelingual onset of severe to profound hearing impairment suggest interventions aimed at children, such as early identification and/or aggressive medical intervention, may have a substantial payback.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Mohr, P. et al. (2000). The societal costs of severe to profound hearing loss in the United States.
Are the conclusions of this article supported by its data?
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3 comments:
The researchers gathering this data appeared to go to great lengths in order to estimate the cost of severe to profound hearing impairments. Such an estimate is significant and important, especially if one can show how preventative measures might improve the situation financially for the country and also personally for individuals with such a hearing loss. After reading this article, I feel that the results are fairly compelling, and I think their data is pretty well supported. I was also glad to see that the researchers pointed out how cochlear implants are affecting these statistics. I'd like to see further studies done on the difference a cochlear implant can make in this area.
An accurate estimate of hearing impairments has important implications for prevention, intervention, etc. This article was good at demonstrating the benefits of knowing. I felt the conclusions that the author was trying to make were not supported well by the data. I felt that this article contained many assumptive statements that were not supported. I also felt that the assumptions and opinions presented really took away much of the credibility from the other data presented in the article that may have important implications.
The cost in this article seemed more reasonable to me. Like I said with the previous article, I don't i know the first thing about cost analysis, so the information reported in the artile sounds good.
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