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Abstract Introduction: It is estimated that about 900 million people globally need access to ATs. In India, the population is ageing, and the need for ATs is expected to be as high as 700 million by 2030. The study aims to find access and availability of assistive technology in an urban population of India. Materials and Methods: It was a cross-sectional study in Raipur, multistage cluster sampling with simple random sampling to choose the wards. Twenty wards were selected from all 10 zones of Raipur; every ward was sampled until an adequate sample size was reached from each ward. The manuscript was prepared in accordance with the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) guidelines. Results: A total of 3833 individuals were searched from 849 households in Raipur. The prevalence of AT use was 23.92% in the city of Raipur, and the most used AT was Spectacles (96.72%). Hearing aids had major unmet needs, whereas significant satisfaction was observed with visual aids. Conclusion: The study found that every fourth individual in the general population needs an AT. The use of AT was significantly associated with type of AT as well as the sociodemographic factors.
Nanda et al. (Wed,) studied this question.