Webinar: Behavioural science in audiology

Presenter: Professor Christopher Armitage Professor of Health Psychology, University of Manchester

Hearing loss remains prevalent and disabling despite there being widely-available and technologically-sophisticated treatments. Prevention and treatment of hearing loss require changes in numerous behaviours performed by the general public (e.g., attendance at hearing screening), patients (e.g., acceptance of hearing aids), healthcare professionals (e.g., use of behaviour change techniques to sustain patients’ use of devices) and policy makers (e.g., investing in hearing health research), yet behavioural science has rarely been used to bring about these changes.

This presentation will show how behavioural science can address these problems by building interventions from the ground up, or by using existing insights from behavioural science theory and evidence to deliver effective interventions at pace.

Key Learning Objectives:

• Understand the key role of behaviour change in relation to audiology
• Identify behavioural science approaches to behaviour change in audiology
• Awareness of ongoing behavioural science research into hearing health problems

Take home message:

Behavioural science is key to improving hearing health outcomes and is almost never ‘common sense

Speaker biography
Professor Christopher J. Armitage is a Health Psychologist registered with the UK Health and Care Professions Council, a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, and Director of Research at the Manchester Centre for Health Psychology in the School of Health Sciences at the University of Manchester. He uses psychological theory and evidence to develop effective behaviour change interventions in multiple behaviours and among diverse populations. He has published more than 150 peer-reviewed articles on these topics and has received funding to support this research from numerous sources, including the European Union, National Institute for Health Research, and several of the UK’s Research and Innovation Councils.