[3] HHF was founded as the Deafness Research Foundation in 1958, by Collette Ramsey Baker, a woman who lived with a substantial hearing loss.
The Deafness Research Foundation (DRF) was founded by Collette Ramsey Baker on February 1, 1958.
A recurrent model for the renowned painter Howard Chandler Christy and an avid golfer, she received letters of commendation from US Presidents Herbert Hoover and Dwight Eisenhower, Helen Keller and Cardinal Francis Spellman.
In 1977 the DRF funded research in outer ear hair cell motility that led to a new method for measuring the health of a newborn's ear, and began funding research to understand how sensory cells transmit sounds from the world to the brain.
Research on the regrowth of cochlea cells may lead to medical treatments that restore hearing.
In 2011 HHF demonstrated how sound travels and educated approximately 18,000 children at Nickelodeon's "Day of Play" at the Mall in Washington, D.C.[10] In 2021 HHF launched its Keep Listening[11] prevention campaign to promote hearing health and safe listening practices to prevent noise-induced hearing loss.