MTÜ Eesti Meeleelundite
Rehabilitatsiooni Keskus AUDIERE
(MTÜ EMERK Audiere,
äriregistri kood 80200262)

2021

The Social Affairs Committee of the Riigikogu will hold a public session on Thursday 11 March dedicated to WHO World Hearing Day, which was celebrated on 3 March.

According to the committee’s Deputy Chairman Helmen Kütt, the main topics of this year’s World Hearing Day – client-centred rehabilitation and awareness-raising and preventive work related to hearing loss – are also topical issues in Estonia.

“The number of people suffering from some degree of hearing loss is growing in every age bracket, so discussions about the availability and quality of services is very much relevant,” Kütt said.

Presentations will be given at the meeting by Kristina Köhler, a liaison officer with the World Health Organization, and audiologists Maret Lepplaan and Liina Luht. Representatives of target groups who will be speaking at the event are EppMüil from the Estonian Association of Implant Children, Külliki Bode from the Estonian Hard of Hearing Association and Anne Maisvee from the NPO Audiere.

Various agencies will also be represented in the discussions.

The public session of the Social Affairs Committee will start at 14:00.

Sign language interpreting and speech-to-text subtitles will be available.

Avo-Rein Tereping from Tallinn University and Sandra Vill from Tartu University Hospital Ear Clinic
were awarded the Audiology Scholarship for conducting a study of the hearing acuity of Estonian schoolchildren.

The aim of the study is to get an overview of hearing acuity and possible hearing loss among

Estonian schoolchildren. For this, an audiometric screening of Estonian schoolchildren will be

conducted. The target group are 9th grade students. The test group consist of 1000 school students.

Prior to the test, students will be given a 45-minute lecture on the causes of hearing loss and the

risks of hearing loss from listening to music with headphones and loud music in general. The lecture

will also go over general hearing hygiene. All test subjects will receive a non-personalised

(anonymous) written assessment of their hearing acuity as feedback. If the hearing loss is greater

than 30 dB, the parent will be notified.

The study will follow all requirements related to human studies. The personal data of the subject will

not be recorded. Only generalised and statistically processed data will be used for publication.

Descriptive statistical methods will be used to analyse the results of the screening test. The results

will be published in the journal Eesti Arst and in some international journals.

The study has been approved by the Ministry of Education and Research.

The study has been postponed due to the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

On December 6 the Supervisory Board of the Aadu Luukas Foundation nominated the non-profit organisation Audiere to be one of the six nominees of the Missionary Prize of the Aadu Luukas Foundation in 2012.

This highly valued recognition is accompanied by a monetary award – 6,400 euros – that we have decided to allocate to the Audiology Scholarship Fund. Pursuant to the statutes of the Missionary Prize the award is given to a person or organisation that stands out as a promoter of the balanced development of Estonian society and our nation’s quality of life. By educating young agile audiologists we can fulfil this aim in a manner worthy of the award.

We are grateful to the honourable Supervisory Board for their trust and recognition, and we would like to thank all those who nominated us and all our partners and everyone who takes an active interest in our activities for their continuous support.