Official documentation
WHO: 1 in 4 people projected to have hearing problems by 2050
World Health Organization, World Health Organization, 2021
Read the originalRead on October 19, 2026
- What it is
- WHO's news release announcing its first World Report on Hearing on 2 March 2021. It projects that nearly 2.5 billion people worldwide will have some degree of hearing loss by 2050, and that at least 700 million will need ear and hearing care.
- How much weight it carries
- Official WHO page, written with the report's own findings. The report's overview page has no prevalence figure, and the full report PDF could not be retrieved, so the figure is taken from the release. It is a modelled projection, not a survey count.
Facts taken from this source
- WHO projects that nearly 2.5 billion people worldwide, or 1 in 4, will have some degree of hearing loss by 2050.
“Nearly 2.5 billion people worldwide ... will be living with some degree of hearing loss by 2050” (Opening paragraph)