Reshaping Global Markets Cut Hearing Aid Procurement Prices by 84 Percent, Review Finds

A new scoping review and UNICEF case study reports that deliberate market shaping dramatically lowered hearing aid prices, highlighting cost as one of the biggest barriers keeping assistive technology out of reach worldwide.

Assistive technology such as hearing aids, wheelchairs, and glasses can transform lives, yet for most of the people who need it, even basic devices remain out of reach. Researchers at University College London set out to examine one of the most promising policy tools for changing that: market shaping, the deliberate effort by large institutions to fix broken markets so that products become available and affordable.

Their findings, published in Frontiers in Rehabilitation Sciences, include a striking data point for the hearing world: early procurement figures from UNICEF's market shaping work show an average price reduction of 84 percent for hearing aids in selected countries.

Background: Why the Researchers Looked at This

The scale of the problem is enormous. The need for assistive technology is projected to reach 3.5 billion people by 2050, yet access currently sits at only about 10 percent. Hearing aids are a prime example: hearing loss is among the most common disabilities worldwide, but traditional devices have historically been expensive, distributed through fragmented channels, and simply unavailable in many places.

Market shaping means using the purchasing power, data, and coordination capacity of large actors to correct market failures, for example by pooling demand across countries, negotiating with suppliers, and creating predictable volumes that let manufacturers lower prices. It has been promoted as a core tool for assistive technology since 2018, but evidence on how it has actually progressed has been scattered.

The authors wanted to map that evidence systematically and to examine, through a detailed case study, how UNICEF, one of the world's largest procurement organizations, has put market shaping into practice.

How the Study Was Done

The research combined two methods. First, a scoping review screened the literature on market shaping for assistive technology, ultimately including 15 publications and extracting common themes across them.

Second, the authors conducted a case study of UNICEF's market shaping work, drawing on eight interviews with people involved in conceptualizing and implementing the strategy, complemented by early procurement data that UNICEF provided for selected countries.

Four themes emerged from the review: the need for systems thinking, the problem of unintegrated innovation, questions of governance and financing, and persistent data gaps in understanding assistive technology markets.

What the Researchers Found

The headline finding for hearing care is the price data. Early figures from UNICEF's procurement work showed an average price reduction of 84 percent for hearing aids in the countries examined. Wheelchairs saw an average reduction of 34 percent, a figure the authors note was pulled down by one country's outlier result of 5 percent.

The evidence indicates that UNICEF's market shaping has had transformative impact to date. When a large, trusted buyer consolidates demand and negotiates systematically, prices that once seemed fixed can fall dramatically.

At the same time, the review found recurring contestation around siloed thinking. Multiple publications argued that assistive technology markets are shaped by multidimensional, interdependent factors, and that isolated interventions are not enough. Several introduced "missions thinking," organizing many actors around a shared goal, as a complementary perspective.

Sector challenges persist, including funding and logistics. The authors conclude that market shaping holds significant promise, but its greatest impact requires coherent, bold stewardship, with market shaping treated as one tool within a broader mission to expand access.

What It Means for People with Hearing Loss

The 84 percent figure is more than a procurement statistic. It is evidence that the historically high price of hearing aids is not an immovable fact of the technology, but substantially a product of how the market has been structured. When purchasing is organized differently, the same category of device can cost a fraction of what buyers were paying.

For individuals, the direction of travel matters. Between international market shaping efforts and regulatory changes that opened retail channels in some countries, the era in which hearing help was locked behind multi-thousand-dollar price tags is eroding. Cost remains one of the most cited reasons people delay addressing hearing loss, and every force pushing prices down chips away at that barrier.

The study also underscores that price is only one piece. Distribution, follow-up support, and reliable information all shape whether a hearing aid actually reaches an ear and stays in use, which is why the authors press for systems-level approaches rather than one-off fixes.

Lowering the Cost Barrier Closer to Home

Because this study highlights cost as a central barrier to hearing care, it is worth noting that newer FDA-OTC hearing aids were created to lower that barrier in consumer markets. Panda Air is one example of this shift: a modern earbud-style hearing aid sold directly to consumers, designed as a self-fitting OTC hearing aid with 16-channel WDRC processing and multi-band adaptive noise reduction.

Air works out of the box, and an optional app can run a frequency-specific in-ear hearing test and personalize gain and frequency response to the user's hearing profile for those who want app-tuned fine control. It is a rechargeable hearing aid with a charging case providing 60 hours of total use, Bluetooth for calls, TV, and music, a 5-year warranty, and a 45-day trial that begins when the product is received.

The OTC category is approved for adults with mild-to-moderate hearing loss. People with severe or profound loss still benefit most from clinical fittings, and lower prices in both retail and institutional channels make it easier for everyone to get help earlier.

Limitations of This Research

The scoping review drew on just 15 publications, reflecting how young the evidence base is, and the case study centered on a single organization with insights from eight interviews. The procurement price data were early figures from selected countries provided by UNICEF itself, not independently audited market-wide statistics, so the 84 percent reduction should be read as a promising signal rather than a settled global norm. The abstract does not report specific funding sources or conflicts of interest.

Where This Leaves Us

This research offers rare, concrete evidence that hearing aid prices respond to deliberate action, whether that action comes from a global procurement agency reshaping institutional markets or from regulatory and retail shifts reshaping consumer ones. With billions projected to need assistive technology by mid-century, the study's message is that affordability is a solvable problem, and the organizations willing to steward these markets coherently will determine how fast it gets solved.

Cole E, Austin V. Market shaping for AT: scoping review and case study of an intervention. Frontiers in Rehabilitation Sciences. 2026;7:1918680. Retrieved from PubMed. https://doi.org/10.3389/fresc.2026.1918680