About Us

The Virtual Hearing Lab is an interdisciplinary collaborative research initiative with the aim to improve hearing health access, affordability, and outcomes by capitalizing on the internet, virtual spaces, and digital health.

This initiative is a partnership between the University of Colorado School of Medicine (US) and the University of Pretoria (South Africa). The Department of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology at the University of Pretoria is also a World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Center for Prevention of Deafness and Hearing Loss.

What We Do

At the Virtual Hearing Lab, our focus is to:

  • Apply rigorous interdisciplinary research methods and consumer health informatics approaches to better understand hearing health experiences, barriers and enablers.
  • Inform and develop translational person-centered technology and service-delivery solutions.

Research Themes

Theme 1: Online user activities to inform and predict help-seeking behavior, intervention uptake, use and satisfaction in hearing loss and balance disorders

Theme 2: Digital health solutions for hearing and balance screening and assessment

Theme 3: Internet- and mHealth-based interventions (digital therapeutics) to facilitate behavior change and improve hearing health outcomes

Theme 4: New service delivery models (e.g., direct-to-consumer, community-based rehabilitation) to optimize hearing healthcare service delivery

Theme 5: Synthesis of evidence (systematic reviews) to inform clinical practice and policy decisions

Key Areas

Consumer Health Informatics

Digital Health

Digital Therapeutics

eHealth

mHealth

Internet Interventions

Natural Language Processing (NLP)

Randomized Controlled Trials

Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis

Teleaudiology

Telehealth

Telerehabilitation

Academic Partners

Industry Partners