What You Can Do for Healthy People Hearing and Speech Goals in Your State

  Tuesday’s blog post explained Healthy People, a set of national health objectives established each decade to identify nationwide health improvement priorities. Healthy People 2020 (HP2020) includes a section on hearing and other sensory or communication disorders. Is your state adopting these objectives? North Carolina, along with several other states, doesn’t regard the communication module as a priority for the 2020 plan. In 2018, states will begin looking at priorities for the 2030 Healthy People plan. Will communication sciences and disorders professionals be at the table in each state to advocate for inclusion of hearing and speech-language disorders? Healthy People aims to increase public understanding of factors determining our health, disease and disability, as well as opportunities for progress. Our job over the next two years includes educating health care professionals about communication disorders and what can cause them—such as the damaging microvascular effects of diabetes and other chronic diseases on the ear and brain. Healthy People also provides measurable objectives and goals applicable at national, state and local levels. The communication module offers measurable objectives and goals for children and adults. In adult hearing care, for example, the goal aims to increase the proportion of adults age 20 to 69 who received a hearing examination in the past five years from a baseline of 21.3 percent to a target of 23.4 percent. The initiative also in...
Source: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) Press Releases - Category: Speech Therapy Authors: Tags: Audiology Early Intervention Hearing Assistive Technology hearing loss hearing protection Source Type: blogs