Lay summary
Hearing impairment and deafness are serious disabilities that impose a heavy social and economic burden on individuals, families, communities and countries. Children with hearing impairment struggle to build the foundation skills required to succeed educationally and socially, which can result in significant long term effects on their mental health and vocational choices as they grow into adults. Despite this, hearing impairment and deafness have been neglected in the public health field even though hearing loss is one of the commonest disabilities and contributes significantly to the global burden of disease. New Zealand has a very poor record for detecting and taking action on early childhood hearing impairment, and Maori and Pacific children are over-represented in both failure rates and time taken to diagnosis. The current study forms an extension of the longitudinal Pacific Island Families (PIF) study and seeks to examine the impact of hearing in pacific youth.