https://alliedhealth.ouhsc.edu/Research Parent Page: Research id: 36270 Active Page: ARIA id: 36736 Portal ID: 244

Audiology Research in Implementation and Access (ARIA)

Advancing hearing healthcare through the lens of health economics and population health

Housed within Communication Sciences and Disorders, the ARIA Lab studies hearing healthcare through the lens of health economics and population health — treating hearing loss not as an isolated clinical event, but as an outcome shaped by policy, workforce, and structural determinants. The lab asks why hearing healthcare that is clinically effective still fails to reach the people who need it, examining how policy, economics, service capacity, prevention infrastructure, and patient behavior interact to shape access, adoption, and benefit — drawing on audiology, public health, implementation science, and health economics.

Structural Determinants Framework of Hearing Healthcare Adoption (SDF-HHA)

A central focus of the ARIA Lab is the Structural Determinants Framework of Hearing Healthcare Adoption (SDF-HHA; Amlani, under review), which positions hearing healthcare adoption within a broader system rather than as an individual decision:
•    environmental exposure
•    socioeconomic and material conditions
•    prevention infrastructure
•    policy structures
•    service capacity
•    health economic value
•    demand formation and patient activation
 

ARIA

Why the Model Matters

Hearing healthcare underuse is often attributed to low awareness or motivation, but many barriers are structural: reimbursement limitations, workforce shortages, geographic placement of services, affordability, referral pathways, and information asymmetry. This persists despite strong evidence linking untreated hearing loss to social isolation, fall risk, cognitive decline, and reduced quality of life.

By organizing these factors into a single framework, the SDF-HHA model supports:
•    research on hearing healthcare uptake
•    development of prevention and screening strategies
•    evaluation of policy and reimbursement barriers
•    study of workforce and service delivery capacity
•    design of more effective care pathways
•    integration of hearing health into broader public health and healthy aging initiatives
 

Current and Emerging Areas of Work

•    hearing healthcare adoption across the lifespan
•    public health prevention and hearing conservation
•    hearing health and chronic disease/comorbidity
•    economic evaluation and value demonstration
•    policy and reimbursement analysis
•    care pathway redesign and implementation
•    workforce and service capacity modeling
•    hearing health, cognition, and healthy aging

Lab Director and Getting Involved

Amyn M. Amlani, PhD

Amyn M. Amlani, PhD, is an audiologist, researcher, and educator whose work focuses on hearing healthcare adoption, access, implementation, public health, and health economics. His scholarship examines how structural, economic, and delivery-system factors influence access to hearing healthcare across the lifespan, integrating audiology with implementation science, policy analysis, and population health.

The ARIA Lab welcomes collaboration with faculty, students, clinicians, and community partners interested in hearing health, implementation science, public health, policy, and healthcare delivery — particularly interdisciplinary partnerships that strengthen the role of hearing healthcare within broader models of prevention, access, and population health. 

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