Hearinginfo.org
33% of U.S. Adults hard of hearing in at least one ear
Source: July 28 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine
A team at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore estimated that 55 million Americans have hearing loss in one or both ears, with men, whites and the least-educated most affected. That's one third of the population!
The study assessed health information from 5,700 Americans aged 20 to 69 years between 1999 and 2004 in the federal National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. It found that men were twice as likely as women (21 percent versus 11 percent) to have speech-frequency hearing loss in one or both ears.
According to the study, one of three U.S. adults already suffers from some
degree of hearing loss and the use of personal stereos and an aging
population may create a hearing impairment epidemic, researchers said on
Monday.
One out of six, or 29 million adults, have some trouble discerning speech,
more than previous estimates, they reported in the Archives of Internal
Medicine.
Hearing loss is common among people 70 and older, according to the report.
But hearing loss also affected 8.5 percent of those in their 20s and 17
percent of people in their 30s. Exposure to workplace noise, firearms, and
loud music were all risk factors.
Whites were more than twice as prone to hearing loss than blacks, and those
with less education were more at risk than those who completed high school
or beyond.