Background
Globally more than 1.5 billion people (nearly 20% of the global population) live with hearing loss. Four hundred and thirty million of them have disabling hearing loss, requiring rehabilitation. It is expected that by 2050, there could be over 700 million people with disabling hearing loss.
Globally, 34 million children have deafness or hearing loss, of which 60% of cases are due to preventable causes. At the other end of the lifespan, approximately 30% of people over 60 years of age have hearing loss.
WHO estimates that 50% of hearing loss can be prevented through public health measures. Exposure to noise and loud sounds is a common cause for hearing loss and WHO estimates that over a billion young people could be at risk of hearing loss due to the way they listen to loud sounds in recreational activities such as listening to music.
Available data also shows that there are over 3 billion gamers worldwide, many of whom play games at high volume levels for several hours a day.
In this project, WHO wants to review the literature and available data to assess the possible risk to hearing through video gaming and esports activities.
WHO is seeking a company/provider that can carry out a scoping review of literature and undertake a meta-analysis to assess the quantum of risk of hearing loss due to unsafe listening in video-gaming and esports.
Work to be performed
Objective 1: To undertake a scoping review of literature with the research questions: - what sound exposures to video gamers experience and for what duration of time? - does the sound exposure during gaming put video gamers at risk of hearing loss?
Output 1.1: Scoping review methodology
Timeline: to be completed by: 5 October 2023
Output 1.2: List of publications
Timeline: to be completed by: 15 October 2023
Output 1.3: Report of scoping review
Timeline: to be completed by: 5 November 2023
Objective 2: Undertake a meta-analysis to assess the risk of hearing loss due to noise exposure in video gamers
Output 2.1: Data extraction excel sheets
Timeline: to be completed by: 5 November 2023
Output 2.2: Meta-analysis finalized (along with sensitivity analyses)
Timeline: to be completed by: 20 November 2023
Objective 3: Prepare a factsheet and an article for external peer review publication.
Output 3.1: Factsheet with relevant graphs
Timeline: to be completed by: 30 November 2023
Output 3.2: Brief document with the facts, figures, tables, and maps.
Timeline: to be completed by: 30 November 2023
Output 3.3: Article for publication
Timeline: to be completed by: 30 November 2023
Required components of proposal
The proposal submitted in response to this CFP should include:
- statement of interest
- cost proposal
- examples of previous relevant, similar work undertaken (or portfolio)
- detailed timeline for the proposed project considering the agency’s current schedule.
Submission of proposals
Your design company is invited to submit a proposal in response to this CFP to the email chadhas@who.int by 24 September 2023.