Abstract:  Currently over 15% of American adults (40 million) have difficulty hearing. Untreated hearing loss is associated with increased cognitive decline, dementia, social isolation, falls and mental health disorders. Alarmingly, those with untreated hearing loss have 46% higher healthcare costs than those without trouble hearing. Despite this, only 1 in 6 people who need hearing aids have ever used them. A likely contributing factor is that the benefit of hearing aids remains limited due to the lack of standardized diagnostics for the known subtypes of sensorineural hearing loss, e.g., two patients having identical hearing loss clinically, but having vastly different abilities to understand speech in noise in the real world. With support from the Life and Health Sciences Summit sponsored by the Purdue Office of Research and Provost’s Office, clinical and research faculty from SLHS, Computer Science, Biology, and Biomedical Engineering are launching APARC this Fall. The team leverages Purdue’s expertise at the intersection of audiology, auditory neuroscience and AI-driven data analytics to focus on the need for precision audiology diagnostic measures. Located at the 16 Tech Innovation District in Indianapolis, APARC is uniquely situated next to the Artisan Marketplace (AMP) food court to provide access to diverse subject populations (e.g., across socio-economic status, race, and hearing profile), as well as to serve as a hearing-health hub for the Indianapolis community. The goals for this project are to 1) provide accessible hearing testing and educate the community on health and economic consequences of untreated hearing loss, 2) understand underlying barriers to pursuing hearing-health solutions, 3) develop and validate accessible approaches to audiological assessment, and 4) develop a large diverse AI-driven data resource to support precision audiology. APARC provides unique opportunities for students and faculty from audiology, engineering, and data science in West Lafayette and Indianapolis to synergize efforts to develop precision audiology approaches to reduce the burden of untreated hearing loss.

This year’s SHRP schedule is available here: https://purdue.edu/TPAN/hearing/shrp_schedule

Titles and abstracts of all SHRP talks are here: https://purdue.edu/TPAN/hearing/shrp_abstracts