If you are a hearing care professional or work within the hearing technology industry you will no doubt have been taught that "People wait X number of years before they get a hearing aid."
It has been one of the industry's most influential mantras, a foundational belief on which we build much of our activities, research, public awareness campaigns and training courses.
In case you are unfamiliar with this doctrine, it is based on studies that ask people how long they were aware they had a problem with their hearing before they began wearing hearing aids. The number of years varies from around 3 years to over 10 years, and it's sometimes used as a measure of whether attitudes towards the wearing of hearing aids are changing. See for example Marketrak.
But the idea that people "wait" is a myth, and a dangerous one at that because the consequences of such a mistaken belief are actually contributing to the very problem we are "measuring".
Here's why.