A country-wide health policy in Chile for deaf adults using cochlear implants: Analysis of health determinants and social impacts.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Post-lingual deafness represents a critical challenge for adults' well-being with substantial public health burdens. One treatment of choice has been cochlear implants (CI) for people with severe to profound hearing loss (HL). Since 2018, Chile has implemented a high-cost policy to cover CI treatment, the "Ley Ricarte Soto" (LRS) health policy. However, wide variability exists in the use of this device. To date, no related study has been published on policy evaluation in Chile or other Latin American countries.

Objectives

This study aimed to evaluate the impact of the LRS policy on the treatment success and labour market inclusion among deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) adults using CI. We examined and characterised outcomes based on self-reports about treatment succe

SUBMITTER: Bustos-Rubilar M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10599544 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature