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The Website for Your Ears

Data analyzed by Sara Laufer Consulting from the 2005 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) confirm that hearing loss is not exclusive to older adults. Click on the bullet points below for more information:

• Among the non-elderly population ages 18-64 in the United States, over 15 percent of men and more than nine percent of women have trouble hearing.

 

• In absolute terms, 13.8 million men and 8.8 million women ages 18-64 report either a little or a lot of trouble hearing.

 

• Fewer than eight percent of people ages 18-64 reporting having trouble hearing have ever used a hearing aid.

 

• Over 30 percent of men and nearly half of women ages 18-64 with a lot of trouble hearing are out of the labor force.

 

• Almost twice as many adults ages 18-64 reporting a lot of trouble hearing have been told by a health care professional that they have hypertension relative to people in this age group with good hearing (36.0 percent vs. 18.1 percent).

 

• Nearly three times as many people ages 18-64 with a lot of trouble hearing felt worthless some or most of the time in the 30 days prior to the survey relative to people in this age group with good hearing (10.3 percent vs. 3.5 percent).

 

• A similar ratio exists with respect to sleeping less than six hours per night--20.7 percent of people ages 18-64 with a lot of trouble hearing vs. 7.4 percent of people in this age group with good hearing noted getting less than six hours of sleep per night.

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In Table 2, 11.6 million non-elderly men and 7.9 million non-elderly women report having a little trouble hearing, while 2.2 million non-elderly men and slightly over 900,000 non-elderly women report having a lot of trouble hearing.

A chart of the data reported in Table 2 is available here.

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Not surprisingly, greater trouble hearing is associated with lower labor force participation. As seen in Table 4, women regardless of hearing status have lower rates of participation in the labor force than men in the 18-64 year-old age group (87.0 percent of men vs. 71.5 percent of women with good hearing, 80.0 percent of men vs. 67.6 percent of women with a little trouble hearing, and 69.9 percent of men vs. 53.2 percent of women with a lot of trouble hearing).

Some of the disparities in labor force participation between the sexes are due in part to childbearing and caregiving responsibilities common among working-age females. Despite these expected differences, it is troublesome to see that, among those of working age reporting a little trouble hearing, one in five men and one in three women are not in the labor force, compared to about one in every eight men and one in every three and one-half women with good hearing.

A chart of the data reported in Table 4 is available here.

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Hearing loss is a disability that can prevent a great deal of communication and socialization. Feeling worthless is much more prevalent among people with trouble hearing, as the data in Table 6 show. Among non-elderly adults ages 18-64 with good hearing, 3.5 percent report having felt worthless some or most of the time in the 30 days prior to the survey, compared to 8.3 percent of those with a little trouble hearing and 10.3 percent of those with a lot of trouble hearing.

A chart of the data reported in Table 6 is available here.

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Sleep deficits are more common among people with trouble hearing relative to people with good hearing. Table 7 shows that, among adults aged 18-64, 7.4 percent with good hearing sleep less than six hours per night, vs. 10.9 percent of those with a little trouble hearing and 20.7 percent of this age group with a lot of trouble hearing.

A chart of the data reported in Table 7 is available here.

There are important quality of life issues and high health care costs associated with managing conditons such as hypertension and insomnia. People reporting even a little trouble hearing have higher rates of hypertension, feeling worthless, and sleep deficits than their counterparts without hearing loss. While these results are descriptive, and while we are still researching causal pathways among hearing loss, comorbid conditions, and related lifestyle factors, the associations are compelling and merit further research, particularly among the understudied non-elderly population. Improving the overall health of non-elderly people with hearing loss will likely foster better self-valuation, increased labor participation rates, and an overall higher quality of life.

Acknowledgement: Mille grazie to Thomas Piazza, Ph.D., for his insightful comments during the preparation of this report.

Technical notes:

• The National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) is a nationally-representative health survey of the noninstitutionalized population in the United States. The survey is conducted annually by the National Center for Health Statistics, an agency of the Centers for Disease Control. Data are self-reported by respondents or their proxies. For more information on the NHIS, see http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhis.htm.
• We calculated all data values from the 2005 NHIS Public Use Person, Sample Adult, and Sample Adult Cancer files, using Intercooled Stata v9.2 for the Macintosh.
• We merged all data sets on the Household Serial Number (HHX), Family Number (FMX), and Person Number (FPX) variables; the merged data set n=31,428 for ages 18+, and n=25,350 for ages 18-64.
• The weight used for all analyses is the sample adult file final annual weight (WTFA_SA).
• Each unweighted cell count in our analyses is at least 30. We did not report findings where the cell count was under 30.
• We categorized respondents as in the labor force if they were working for pay at a job or business, with a job or business but not at work, looking for work, or working, but not for pay, at a job or business. We categorized respondents as not in the labor force if they were not working at a job or business and not looking for work.

Coming soon in Research and News:

• Projections of the non-elderly population with hearing trouble
• Cost-effectiveness of employer-sponsored hearing health care benefits
• Prevalence rates of trouble hearing by race, ethnicity, and marital status
• Hearing loss accommodations in the workplace as inputs to higher productivity