The Apple Hearing Study, run in collaboration with the University of Michigan, is out with new findings this week that highlight the importance of the Apple’s hearing health features for AirPods.

As a refresher, the Apple Hearing Study includes more than 160,000 consented participants across the United States, which makes it one of the largest hearing research studies ever conducted.

Some key takeaways from the new findings include:

• Among nearly 85,000 participants who technically tested within WHO “normal” hearing range (≤25 dB), 16% still rated their hearing as fair or poor
  • “Further illustrating the gap between measured and perceived hearing ability among individuals classified as having normal hearing, many participants classified as having normal hearing reported difficulties with concentration when listening to someone and when understanding others with background speakers,” the study adds.
• Hearing loss may connect to physical health too: In a separate analysis of 57,183 people, worse hearing was linked to slower walking speed, especially for adults 60+

The study concludes:

We found that the hearing metric we evaluated, the four-frequency pure tone average, was associated with self-reported hearing ability and with daily-life hearing difficulty among people classified as having normal hearing. Enabling individuals to monitor their hearing using the 4PTA, which they can do using Apple’s Hearing Test Feature, gives them the opportunity to track their hearing as it changes over time, even when classified as clinically normal, and to take steps to protect and assist their hearing over their lifetime.

We also found that increasing hearing loss was strongly linked with lower walking speed that is a key indicator of mobility and physical health. Addressing and treating hearing loss with strategies such as the Hearing Aid Feature may help promote physical health over the life course. Importantly, none of these findings would have been possible without the help of the participants of the Apple Hearing Study.

You can read more about this hearing health study on the University of Michigan website.

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