UA’s Mobile Hearing Center Unveiled

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. ─ “Can you hear me now?” OK, that may not be exactly what The University of Alabama’s Dr. Marcia Hay-McCutcheon asks patients at the new Hear Here Alabama project, but it’s pretty close.

Hay-McCutcheon, UA associate professor of communicative disorders, will lead the project as she drives a mobile hearing center—a large, motorcoach-like vehicle—into areas of West Alabama to test patients’ hearing, at no cost to the patients.

The outreach program will help an underserved segment of Alabama’s population.

“In Alabama, approximately 22 percent of the population is 55 years old or older, and, additionally, according to the 2014 Alabama Poverty Data Sheet, Alabama is the nation’s seventh poorest state,” Hay-McCutcheon said.

“A large percentage of Alabamians are estimated to have an undiagnosed hearing loss and/or no resources to address the hearing loss.”

Hear Here Alabama’s mission is to diagnose hearing loss in Alabama and provide essential hearing health care services using a mobile unit equipped with the necessary testing equipment and remediation resources.

The program is designed to bring hearing care to area residents who can’t easily travel.

“Our goals are to identify hearing loss of adults living in Alabama, particularly in rural or underserved areas in Alabama, to identify the impact of hearing loss on the general physical and emotional health of Alabamans, and to provide effective and appropriate intervention to all Alabamans with hearing loss,” Hay-McCutcheon said.

If that sounds lofty, Hay-McCutcheon can break the goals down further.

“Our first goal is to figure out the extent of hearing loss of people in West Alabama,” she said. “And, then we want to find out how this associates with physical and emotional issues and provide an appropriate response.”

And that means communicative disorders, a department in the UA College of Arts and Sciences, is partnering with the College of Community Health Sciences in order to help area residents with treatment.

The program starts in rural West Alabama, with Marengo, Dallas and Wilcox counties. As the project expands, Hay-McCutcheon expects to move into more West Alabama counties—and then expand even further.

The idea for Hear Here Alabama came to Hay-McCutcheon in 2011, as she drove to take her new position at UA.

“I wanted to incorporate what I was doing at IU (Indiana University, where Hay-McCutcheon was previously employed) down here,” she said. “I began to think, ‘maybe I could just take my work to patients, rather than making them come to me.’”

It took some time to set up, but with various UA administrators helping secure funds for the program, the Hear Here project was on its way—possibly to a county near you.

The University’s College of Arts and Sciences is UA’s largest division and the largest liberal arts college in the state. Students from the College have won numerous national awards including Rhodes Scholarships, Goldwater Scholarships, Truman Scholarships, and memberships on the USA Today Academic All American Team.