Prevalence of hearing impairment

Hearing impairment is the commonest sensory impairment worldwide. Age related hearing loss is the commonest cause of hearing impairment.

It is estimated that there are approximately 8.3 million adults with mild or moderate hearing impairment and 688,000 with severe or profound hearing impairment in the UK.

The number of people with hearing impairment is rising as the proportion of the population over the age of 60 years increases.

Approximately 50,000 people use British Sign Language and for most of them it is their first language.