Educational attainment, labour force status and injury: a comparison of Canadians with and without deafness and hearing loss

Abstract

Communication is essential to both educational attainment and labour force participation. Deafness--both the disability and the culture--creates a communication barrier. The objective of this study is to profile the educational attainment, labour force status and injury profile of deaf and hard-of-hearing Canadians in relation to the population as a whole. Using data from the Canada Community Health Survey 1.1, a cross-sectional survey conducted by Statistics Canada with a total of 131,535 respondents, a series of logistic regression models were fitted to estimate the odds of reporting the presence of educational attainment, labour force status and injury, and being classified as having a hearing problem. For each odds ratio, 95% confidence intervals are provided. All analyses were adjusted for age and sex with some analyses being restricted to appropriate age ranges or having further adjustments made, depending on the outcome. Approximately 4% of the respondents were considered to have a hearing problem. The prevalence of hearing problems increases with age and men have a slightly higher prevalence of hearing problems compared with women (4.52 vs. 3.53%). Respondents classified as having a hearing problem, whether hearing loss or deafness, were more likely to have achieved less education, less likely to be working and experience higher rates of injury and work-related injury compared with hearing respondents. These results underscore the need to equalize access to education and employment and assure the accessibility to workplace safety and wellness for this minority group.

Discrepancy between self-assessed hearing status and measured audiometric evaluation

“…On the other hands, unemployed showed significantly more overestimation of hearing loss. This result may be explained by the fact that individuals with hearing loss have more difficulty obtaining employment and are more frequently injured on the job [37]. A higher level of education was related to concordance between self-reported hearing loss and audiometric PTA results in the current study.…”

Self-reported hearing difficulties, main income sources, and socio-economic status; a cross-sectional population-based study in Sweden

“…They are at increased risk of underperforming in school [25-27], of being underrepresented in highly skilled jobs [28], and of being overrepresented among low-income earners [2,26,28] and unemployed [25,26,28,29]. Working hearing-impaired individuals often experience less control over their work environment, which may eventually result in stress-related health problems [30,31].…”

Deficiência auditiva referida por idosos no Município de São Paulo, Brasil: prevalência e fatores associados (Estudo SABE, 2006)

“…Além do avanço da idade em si, outros fatores podem contribuir para o surgimento de deficiên-cia auditiva em idosos, ou para seu agravamento, dentre os quais se destacam: sexo masculino 7 , morbidades associadas (tais como hipertensão 8 , diabetes 9 , doenças osteoarticulares 10 , depressão 11 e comprometimento cognitivo 12 ), outras deficiências 13 , uso de medicamentos 14 , condições socioeconômicas desfavoráveis 15 , caracterizadas pela baixa renda, ocupações prévias consideradas de risco para a audição, baixa escolaridade e presença do hábito de fumar 5 .…”