‘3E’ project team exceed expectations!
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The 3E project, funded by the Hear the World Foundation and done in partnership with the hearX Group and implementation partner – Carel du Toit Centre and Trust, aims to screen 10,000 people in underserved communities in Cape Town over a two-year period.
The project, nicknamed '3E' by the team (Ears and Eyes for Education) started with the recruitment of four screeners with no previous experience from the community. One of them was appointed project administrator. Ethical clearance was obtained from the University of Pretoria so that our team could research, document and publish the findings of the project.
2,591 consent forms were distributed at 186 Early Childhood Development Centres (EDCs). Of these, 1,960 (75,6%) were returned. 1,811 were from children eligible for screening in 2017. Another 149 children will only be old enough in 2018. Only 78 children who gave consent were not screened due to the fact that they were absent or had left the school, or their parents withdrew consent.
Hearing and vision screening commenced in September 2017 and continued to the end of November.
1,733 children aged 5 to 6 years old were tested for hearing and vision loss with hearScreen and Peek Acuity mobile applications. This far exceeded the goal, which was to reach 1,000 children by the end of December!
165 (9,5%) of these children were referred for mobile hearing screening with hearScreen, our award-winning hearing test solution on a smartphone, which, with its user-friendly design allows laypersons with minimal training to do the screening.
150 ‘first line follow-up’ hearing tests were done with our hearTest mobile application combined with otoscopy at the ECDs, which translates to a 91% first follow-up rate!
After first line follow-up, 40 children (2,3% of all the children screened or 26,7% of all first-time follow-ups) were booked for diagnostic follow-up appointments at the government hospital and 35 children were referred for ear wax removal at their local clinics.
The team has already identified 64 new ECDs where they will start screening in 2018.
