Translational Research II - The Killion LectureTransforming Hearing through Evidence, Policy, and Awareness Hearing is critical for our daily communicative, social, cognitive, and physical functioning. However, while declines in hearing occur universally across the human lifespan, societal perceptions and governmental policies toward age-related hearing loss do not reflect the singular importance of effective hearing to human health. Instead, hearing loss is widely stigmatized and ignored, and hearing interventions are underutilized, inaccessible, and unaffordable. Transforming our approach toward hearing to optimize population health requires changing the fundamental assumptions and rules that govern the global hearing care marketplace. I will discuss over the past decade efforts to transform hearing in the United States through the three foundational pillars of producing high-level scientific evidence to establish the importance of hearing to adult health, developing market-shaping policies to increase innovation and competition in hearing technologies, and changing societal perceptions and awareness of hearing through the Hearing Number initiative.
Frank R. Lin, MD, PhD is a Professor of Otolaryngology and Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health. As an otologic surgeon and epidemiologist, he has translated his experiences caring for adults with hearing loss into public health research and policy. These efforts include establishing the impact of hearing loss and hearing interventions on dementia risk and other health outcomes through the ACHIEVE study, collaborating with and testifying before policy makers to secure federal passage and enactment of the U.S. Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid Act of 2017, and launching the Hearing Number awareness initiative. Lin is a former member of both the Board on Health Sciences Policy and the Forum on Aging, Disability, and Independence at the National Academies. As of September 2025, he is on a professional leave of absence from Johns Hopkins University and working at Apple.
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