Purpose-The goal of this study was to determine the impact of age, gender and race on the prevalence and severity of hearing loss in elder adults, aged 72-96 years, after accounting for income, education, smoking, and clinical and subclinical cardiovascular disease.Methods-Air-conduction thresholds for standard and extended high-frequency puretones were obtained from a cohort of 548 (out of 717) elderly adults (ages 72-96 years) who were recruited during the Year 11 clinical visit (1999)(2000) of the Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS) at the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania site. Participant smoking, income, education, and cardiovascular disease histories were obtained from the CHS database and were included as factors.Results-Hearing loss was more common and more severe for the participants in their 80s than those in their 70s, the men more than the women, and the White participants more than the Black participants. The inclusion of education, income, smoking and cardiovascular disease (clinical and subclinical) histories as factors did not substantively impact the overall results.Conclusion-Although the data reported in this paper were cross-sectional and a cohort phenomenon might have been operational, they suggested that hearing loss is more substantive in the eighth than the seventh decade of life, and that race and gender influence this decline in audition. Given the high prevalence in the aging population and the differences across groups there is a clear need to understand the nature and causes of hearing loss across various groups in order to improve prevention and develop appropriate interventions.Hearing loss is very common in the general population. Approximately 16% of adults in the United States report some difficulty with hearing, and after arthritis and hypertension, hearing impairment is the third most commonly reported chronic condition in persons over 65 (National Center for Health Statistics, 1982; Pleis & Coles, 2003). By age 70 years, approximately 30% of the population perceives themselves as being hearing impaired, and by 80 years, 50% report being hearing impaired (Desai, Pratt, Lentzner, & Robinson, 2001). There also is indication that the prevalence of hearing impairment in persons 45-69 years of age is increasing, especially among men (Wallhagen, Strawbridge, Cohen, & Kaplan, 1997). Men have consistently reported more hearing problems than women regardless of race. Furthermore, White adults have reported hearing impairment more than Black adults (Desai et al., 2001; Pleis & Lethbridge-Çejku, 2006
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NIH-PA Author ManuscriptThe prevalence of self-reported hearing impairment not only varies by race but also by ethnicity. For example, the 1999 National Health Interview Survey (Pleis & Coles, 2003) found that adults from Asian and African decent were less likely to experience hearing problems (7.8% and 7.4% respectively) than Whites or Native Americans (17.2 and 20.1, respectively). Whereas 15% of non-Hispanic White adults reported some form...