Unitron global listening environment study 2016

Global Listening Environment Study
Donald Hayes, Ph.D., Director, Clinical Research, Unitron. 2016

The Global Listening Environment
Study (GLES) took advantage of
Unitron’s unique Log It All feature to
acoustically map the listening
environments experienced by hearing
aid wearers in 10 countries.
Global Listening Environment Study, Unitron. 2016

The findings
Yup, the boring stuff comes first

How much time do people spend in different
listening environments?

Seven listening environments
Findings
1. No listening Environment averages to less
than 5%, four are above 10%.
2. The pattern is very consistent across all
countries.
3. Conversation in a Small Group and Quiet
Listening are the two most common
listening situations.
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
Coverage(%)
Seven Listening Environments
Listening Environment x Country
Germany
Australia
Netherlands
Slovenia
USA
Canada
South Africa
New Zealand
France
Spain

Seven listening environments
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Conv in Quiet Conv in Small Group Conv in Crowd Conv in Noise Quiet Noise Music
CoverageTime(%)
Listening Environments

Across Age Group Comparison
Findings
1. Two groups of people who differ in age by
20 – 30 years.
2. Yet, with the exception of a couple of 4%
differences in conversation in noise and
quiet listening they are almost identical.
3. But these are averages. What does the
raw data look like?
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
Percentage
Listening Environment
Listening Environment x Two Age Groups
50-59
70-79

It all looks terribly consistent.
Is this result surprising?

Within Age Group Comparison
Findings
1. The mean values can be very
misleading. The actual data
tells a very different story.
2. Within this group 50-59 there
is far more individual
variability than we see when
comparing across ages.
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Cnv_In_Qt Cnv_In_Sm_Grp Cnv_In-Crwd Cnv_In-Ns Quiet Noise Music
Usage(%)
Individuals (50-59)

Within Age Group Comparison
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Usage(%)
Individuals (50-59)
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Usage(%) Listening Environments
Individuals (70-79)

Average results are very consistent across
groups. But individual results are highly variable.

Take home – Age is not a good predictor of
acoustic listening lifestyle.

How much time is spent in ‘conversation’
Conversation means all forms of verbal communications. In this case, four
conversational listening environments:
• Conversation in quiet (one on one)
• Conversation in a small group
• Conversation in a crowd
• Conversation in noise

Conversation is dominant
Conversation
Non-Conversation
43%
57%

Let’s break it down
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
40-49 50-59 60-69 70-79 80-89 90+
Coverage(%)
Age (decades)
Conversation x Age

What does this mean?
In the strictly acoustic sense of the word, the time that the
average 40 year old spends in any form of conversation is not
more than 8% higher than the average for any other age
group, up to and including 90+

How much time is spent ‘functioning in noise’
‘Functioning in noise’ can be interpreted many ways:
• Conversation in a loud environment (consistently >65 dB)
• Conversation in noise (think bus ride for example)
• Listening just in noise (any input level)
• Absence of speech + presence of noise.
• Functioning in noise (generically)
• Conversation in noise
• Absence of speech + presence of noise

0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
Conversing in Crowd Conversing in Noise Listen in Noise
Percentage
Listening Situation
Functioning in Noise

0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
50-59 60-69 70-79 80-89 90+
Percentage
Age (decades)
Listening in Noise x Age/Gender
Female
Male

0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
55
60
50-59 60-69 70-79 80-89 90+
Percentage
Age (decades)
Functioning in noise x Age
Conversing in Crowd
Conversing in Noise
Listen in Noise

How much time is spent in ‘soft inputs”’
‘Soft inputs’ is interpreted as:
• Conversation in environments consistently <65 dB
• One on one conversation
• Small group conversation
• Quiet listening (no speech or noise)

0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
40-49 50-59 60-69 70-79 80-89 90+
Percent
Age (decades)
Soft Inputs x Age

In summary
A few key GLES findings:
1. Demonstrated how much time average hearing aid wearers spend in different listening
environments, with time in conversation dominant.
2. Identified how much individual variability there is in each clients’ listening experiences.
3. Regardless of the age of a patient, the average data showed that there is a much smaller
difference than one might expect in the percentage of time they spend in various acoustic
environments as they age.

Clinics from ten countries participated
Records were collected from multiple clinics in
each participating country.
Data was included from fittings where the hearing
aids were worn for a minimum of two weeks.
Data was collected locally beginning April 1, 2016.
The last records included in this analysis were
accepted July 28, 2016.
Country Records
Australia 134
Canada 87
France 78
Germany 87
Netherlands 141
New Zealand 140
Slovenia 58
South Africa 55
Spain 67
USA 208
Total 1055

Data collected in each country
Gender Age in Decades Location Population Density
Logged
(Hrs/day) Listening Environments
Male 20 - 29 Rural 0 - 1000 0 Conversation 1 on 1
Female 30 - 39 Small Town 1001 - 10,000 1 Conversation Small Group
40 - 49 Suburban 10,001 - 25,000 2 Conversation Large Group
50 - 59 Urban 25,001 - 100,000 3 Conversation in Noise
60 - 69 100,001 - 500,000 ⸗ Quiet Listening
70 - 79 500,001 - 1,000,000 13 Noise only
80 - 89 1,000,000 - 10,000,000 14 Music
90+ 15

Author: Donald Hayes, Ph.D., F/AAA
Donald Hayes, Ph.D. is Director of Clinical Research for Unitron
and is responsible for the company’s corporate audiology group.
His group works closely with the organization’s product
management and research & development teams to provide a
clinical perspective during the definition and validation of new
products.
Dr. Hayes holds a Ph.D. in Audiology from the University of
Cincinnati, a Master of Arts in Audiology from State University
of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo, and a Bachelor of Arts in
Communication Disorders and Sciences also from SUNY at
Buffalo.

Unitron global listening environment study 2016

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