EARLY HEARING DETECTION AND INTERVENTION VIRTUAL CONFERENCE
MARCH 2-5, 2021

(Virtually the same conference, without elevators, airplane tickets, or hotel room keys)

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10/27/2018  |   9:10 AM - 10:10 AM   |  Using Big Data Analytics to Formulate Public Health Policy for Hearing Health   |  Kramer Lecture Theater 3

Using Big Data Analytics to Formulate Public Health Policy for Hearing Health

Hearing loss is a huge and increasing global problem; public health methods are needed to address hearing loss on a large scale within countries. For this purpose, good public health policy decisions are essential in order to develop and implement cost-effective programmes. WHO has recently urged Countries to “improve data on ear diseases and hearing loss, to inform policy decision-making”, and “to formulate evidence-based strategies and policies on ear and hearing care". Innovative, rapid, comprehensive measures will be needed to do this. EVOTION, the project described here, is using big data analytics in an integrated platform to gather large amounts of retrospective and real-time data from hearing aid users and to analyse it to make public health policy recommendations through the use of model-based computer algorithms. The real-time data will be collected from subjects’ smart hearing aid(s) and biosensors; and sent through smart phones to the platform. Until now, public health policy decisions have been determined using retrospective epidemiological and clinical data, guidelines, expertise of policy makers, and evidence from searches of randomised controlled trials. EVOTION will enable public health policy decisions to be made more rapidly, appropriately and accurately, based on evidence that is continually obtained and assessed from analysis of static clinical and dynamic hearing aid usage, and physiological and environmental data of hearing aid users. For this, EVOTION is developing a configurable computing platform integrating big data analytics and decision support capabilities. EVOTION is a consortium funded under the EU Horizon 2020 programme. It is the first ever project to use big data analytics and real-time data for public health policy formulation in the field of hearing loss. EVOTION would be useful for all countries that are involved in the global enterprise to reduce the massive burden of hearing loss.

  • 1. To recognise that Public Health methods are needed in policy-making to address the massive global burden of hearing loss.
  • 2. To understand how retrospective and real-time data will be collected from static and dynamic sources and utilised by the EVOTION platform.
  • 3. To understand how Big Data Analytics may be used to formulate Public Health Policy for Hearing Health, as being developed by the EVOTION project.

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Presenters/Authors

Andrew Smith (), London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, andrew.smith@lshtm.ac.uk;
I am an Honorary Professor at the International Centre on Evidence for Disability at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine since 2008. My interest is studying, promoting and teaching public health approaches to prevention and rehabilitation of hearing loss in low and middle income countries, and in disadvantaged communities in high-income countries. Since 2009, I and a colleague have developed and run 5-day courses on Public Health Planning for Hearing Impairment. Up till now, we have trained 946 health workers from 43 countries in 26 courses at 12 centres mainly in low and middle income countries.


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Konstantina Koloutsou (), CITY, University of London, Konstantina.Koloutsou@city.ac.uk;
Dr. Konstantina Koloutsou (female) is the Senior Data Scientist in Sphynx and responsible for projects in the area of Biomedical Computing. She holds a PhD in Speech Audiometry (University of Athens, 2017), an MSc in Audiological Science (University College London, 2001) and a BSc in Speech Communication (University College London, 2000). Konstantina has significant experience in developing data analytics models, especially in the area for biomedical computing. Before joining Sphynx, she had worked for more than 15 years as a senior Clinical Audiologist the Guy's and St. Thomas NHS Hospitals in the UK, where she was also the Leader Clinical Audiologist for the EVOTION EU project focusing on data analytics for dynamically adapting hearing aid settings based on evolving real-time environment and patient data. Currently, she is also pursuing a PhD in biomedical computing as an external part time student at City, University of London.


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Lyubov Trenkova (), Pazardzhik Regional Administration, info to come;
18 years of experience in regional development planning for the public administration. Received extensive training in EU policy planning and programming, implementation management, monitoring and evaluation/updating as well as on project cycle management. Involved in the drafting (analysis, priority setting, monitoring indicators, impact assessment), implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the Regional development plan 2000-2006 and Regional development strategies 2005-2015 and 2014-2020 for Pazardzhik region, Bulgaria. Member of the regional partnership network for the elaboration, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the National Innovation Strategy for Smart Specialization 2014-2020 of the Rep. of Bulgaria and responsible for the regional smart specialization planning for Pazardzhik region. Managed and coordinated Pazardzhik Regional administration's involvement as a partner in 7 EU-scale projects under EU's FP7 and Horizon2020 programmes for research and innovation and INTERREG programes (IIIC, IVC, South-Eastern Europe, Interreg Europe} for interregional cooperation.


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Dario Brdaric (), Institute of Public Health for the Osijek-Baranya County, dario.brdaric@gmail.com;
Dario Brdari? is an employee of the Institute of Public Health for the Osijek-Baranya County, Osijek, Croatia. He is a Lecturer at the University of Applied Health Sciences in Zagreb, Croatia. He has more than 12 years of rich experience in environmental protection, public health and management of the EU, UN, national and local projects. He completed his PhD in environmental sciences at the University of Osijek, Croatia. He leads Horizon 2020 project in the Institute of Public Health which is related to the development of public hearing health policies. He has led several projects in the field of environmental protection and public health and he has worked on international projects related to the implementation of the UN and EU policies. He holds International Leadership certificate. He serves as a Secretary at the European Federation of Environmental Health.


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Panagiotis Katrakazas (), Biomedical Engineering Laboratory, National Technical University of Athens, pkatrakazas@biomed.ntua.gr ;
Panagiotis Katrakazas is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Biomedical Engineering Laboratory at the National Technical University of Athens, since November 2014. He holds a diploma in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens. He is also IT Associate in the Department of Transportation Planning and Engineering of the School of Civil Engineering. He was Project Manager of the team tasked with electronic registration of the Agricultural Insurance Organization pensions at the Hellenic Post, 2010 - 2011. He prepares and teaches the undergraduate courses “Measurements and Controls in Biomedical Engineering” and “Biomedical Technology Laboratory”, and the postgraduate course “Signals and Systems” in the Master of Science in Audiology-Neurotology programme at the National Kapodistrian University of Athens. His scientific specialization and interests include Acoustics, Noise Control, Medical Information Systems, Data Mining and Biomedical Technology. He has authored/co-authored 16 articles in peer-reviewed conferences, and 3 chapters in peer-reviewed books.


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