World Hearing Day: Supporting wellbeing with hearing-friendly environments
A Bolton Clarke project co-designing with retirement village residents is helping design environments that will support social connection and boost overall wellbeing for people affected by hearing loss.
March 3rd is World Hearing Day.
About one in six Australians live with hearing loss, but only one in four have had a hearing check at a clinic in the past year.
The Bolton Clarke Research Institute has been working with residents, frontline teams, and UQ researchers to implement a range of hearing projects that have enabled hearing checks onsite and the incorporation of hearing and vision friendly design principles into retirement villages undergoing refurbishments.
Senior Research Fellow Dr Carly Meyer said the work followed consecutive Health and Wellbeing in Retirement Living surveys which identified hearing loss as being highly prevalent among retirement living residents.
Bolton Clarke’s 2025 survey found 45 per cent of residents reported hearing problems.
“Hearing and vision loss are highly prevalent among older adults,” Dr Meyer said.
“But we know hearing is important for ageing well, including building and maintaining relationships and staying connected to communities.
“Most research to address this has focused on improving device uptake and adherence, but an alternative approach is to consider hearing and vision-friendly design in built environments that service older people, like communal areas in retirement villages.
“By designing to decrease background noise, reducing echo and reverberation from hard surfaces and taking advantage of assistive listening technology, we can help people feel confident to keep engaging in their communities.”
Read Bolton Clarke’s white paper on hearing and health here.
