WikiProject Hearing Health at WikiCon Brasil 2025: Digital Public Goods in the Dissemination of Knowledge and Hearing Health Education

 

WikiCon Brasil 2025 took place on July 19 and 20 in Salvador, Bahia, under the theme “Strengthening Digital Public Goods.” The theme aligns with global discussions on new internet policies, in line with the United Nations Global Digital Compact, which highlights digital public goods such as free software, open data, and open content as pillars of an inclusive digital transformation.

The Wikimedia projects have consolidated themselves as strongholds of free, verified knowledge on the internet, offering democratic access to information. This mission becomes particularly crucial in the health field, with Wikimedia projects serving as potential tools to address the global burden of hearing loss through the dissemination of and literacy in hearing health and safe listening.

According to the World Report on Hearing (World Health Organization, 2021), more than 1.5 billion people live with some degree of hearing loss worldwide, with 430 million experiencing disabling hearing loss. The burden is disproportionately higher in low- and middle-income countries, where access to quality information on prevention and treatment is limited.

Established as a global initiative in 2024 and documented on Meta-Wikimedia, WikiProject Hearing Health participated in the conference with five coordinators. The project follows the Hearing Health Project, established as a consolidated teaching and research initiative in 2021 and documented on Wikiversity.

One of the outcomes of WikiProject Hearing Health is the massive open online course on Wikiversity titled “Introduction to Basic Audiology” and the organization of the global Wiki4WorldHearingDay campaigns. Participants and coordinators of the WikiProject Hearing Health took part in various conference sessions and presented results and proposals developed by the initiative.

Language Models as Support for Editing Hearing Health Content on Wikipedia and Wikidata
 

This session discussed the integration and limitations of using language models in Wikimedia projects for education and dissemination of hearing health information. It presented an educational activity model that incorporates generative AI-based assistants to support the creation and review of hearing health content on Wikipedia and Wikidata. The initiative discuss with the Wikimedia Foundation’s Multigenerational Strategy – Artificial Intelligence for Wikimedia Editors.

Educational Experiences with Wikipedia and Wikidata

This session shared methodologies based on the experience of over 40 educational programs in hearing health since 2019, covering steps from scope definition to progress monitoring and documentation on Wikiversity. Strategies included the use of tools such as PetScan, PagePile, and Wikidata Query Builder to structure thematic activities.

Impact and Perspectives

The participation of WikiProject Hearing Health in WikiCon Brasil 2025 demonstrates how digital public goods can be strategic in addressing global public health challenges. By combining expert knowledge, emerging technologies such as language models, and proven educational methodologies, the project contributes to closing information gaps in a technical field crucial for population health.

The initiative exemplifies the potential of Wikimedia projects to democratize specialized knowledge, especially in contexts where access to reliable hearing health information can directly impact the prevention and treatment of hearing loss on a global scale.

In 2024, researchers from WikiProject Hearing Health published the article “Strategies for crowdsourcing hearing health information: a comparative study of educational programs and volunteer-based campaigns on Wikimedia” which characterizes elements that contributed to strategies for disseminating hearing health knowledge on Wikimedia projects, such as selecting impactful topics, engaging with educational programs, fostering international and multidisciplinary collaborations, promoting the initiative across platforms, connecting with a strong local Wikimedia affiliate, and using technical infrastructure that offers metrics and coordination mechanisms.

Acknowledgments

WikiProject Hearing Health thanks Wikimedia Brasil, through its Grants and Programming Committees, for the opportunity to participate and collaborate in the sessions at WikiCon Brasil 2025. Part of the activities of WikiProject Hearing Health are supported by the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) under grant numbers 2021/06902-2 and 2024/04559-0. The coordination of WikiProject Hearing Health is organized by professors and researchers from the University of São Paulo (LiJacob, CorraleH, and Priscicruz) and the Federal University of Santa Catarina (Fernanda Zucki) linked to the CNPq Research Group – “Audiological Research Center.” We also thank the other participants and institutions in education, research, and hearing health care that support the activities of WikiProject Hearing Health.