The analysis comes at a crucial moment as

The first couple places were demoralizing: I walked in, was told it’d be $7,000 for the “best” option (they mysteriously didn’t happen to have any other options handy), then marched right back out the door, utterly discouraged.I started asking friends and neighbors whether they wore a hearing aid, or knew anyone at all with a hearing aid, and could point me to a good audiologist.

It took a lot of poking around, but I found one — and it made all the difference.This article is part of AP’s Be Well coverage, focusing on wellness, fitness, diet and mental health.I’ve been wearing my hearing aids for several months now, and they are as easy as slipping on a pair of glasses, are almost invisible, have reconnected me with the world, and, as crazy as this may sound, they bring me joy.

After talking with a few audiologists around the country, it turns out that my experience is pretty typical.“There are a lot of people who stall before getting one,” says Meagan P. Bachmann, director of audiology at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist, in North Carolina.

“Hearing is important because it connects us with people,” she says. “Multiple studies show that

can affect your ability to connect with others and participate in life, so you have to think of itAn Indigenous woman from the Wayuu community cooks near her baby as wind turbines operate in the distance on the outskirts of Cabo de la Vela, Colombia, Feb. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia, File)

An Indigenous woman from the Wayuu community cooks near her baby as wind turbines operate in the distance on the outskirts of Cabo de la Vela, Colombia, Feb. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia, File)For Samuel Lanao, head of La Guajira’s environmental authority, the main reason several licensed renewable energy projects are being sold off is because companies struggle with deep-rooted social tensions, particularly during the prior consultation process with local Indigenous communities. Lanao said confrontations have emerged between firms and residents, derailing expectations of development.

“This has been a major blow to La Guajira,” he said, “as there were high hopes for economic and social progress through these projects.”, a seminomadic Indigenous group in the arid La Guajira region of northern Colombia and Venezuela, remain divided over wind energy development. While some have welcomed the economic support offered by companies building turbines on their ancestral lands, many others have raised concerns over environmental and cultural impacts, and a lack of meaningful prior consultation, in what is one of Colombia’s poorest regions.