Living with Hearing loss in Bristol | Centre for Deaf and Hard of Hearing People

You are not alone...

The facts

How many people suffer from hearing loss?

The world

Estimates vary depending on the definition of hearing loss, the population studied, and the year the data was collected. However, globally:

Over 1.5 billion people live with some degree of hearing loss.
Around 430 million of these individuals require rehabilitation services for their hearing loss.
It’s projected that by 2050, this number could rise to 2.5 billion, with over 700 million requiring rehabilitation services.
Hearing loss affects approximately 20.3% of the global population.
Around 34 million children globally have deafness or hearing loss, and a significant portion (60%) is due to preventable causes like ear infections and vaccine-preventable diseases.

In the UK

More than 18 million adults in the UK are deaf, have hearing loss, or tinnitus.
Over half of the population aged 55 or more have hearing loss.
80% of people over the age of 70 will experience hearing loss.
An estimated 1.2 million adults have hearing loss severe enough to make hearing conversational speech difficult.

In Bristol

The latest available estimates indicate that approximately.

62,220 people aged 18 and over in Bristol were predicted to have some form of hearing loss in 2025.

This represents around 16.1% of the adult population.

This number is forecast to rise to

Additionally,

6,655 adults in Bristol are predicted to have severe hearing loss in 2025, representing 1.7% of the adult population.