Scope of hearing loss bigger than thought
CBC News
Posted: Nov 15, 2011 1:56 PM ET
Last Updated: Nov 15, 2011 1:55 PM ET
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Nearly one in five Americans aged 12 and older has hearing loss severe enough to make communication difficult, a new report estimates.
Until now, studies of hearing loss focused on certain American cities or populations, such as children or the elderly. 
The World Health Organization defines hearing loss as not being able to hear sounds of 25 decibels or less in speech frequencies. Hear the World/League for the Hard of Hearing/Associated Press
The study in this week's issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine offers a nationally representative estimate of hearing loss in the U.S. overall, the researchers said.
Dr. Frank Lin of the department of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery at the Johns Hopkins Center on Aging and Health in Baltimore and his co-authors analyzed data from the National Health and Nutritional Examination Surveys or NHANES.
Between 2001 to 2008, participants age 12 and over had their hearing tested.
Based on the World Health Organization's definition — not being able to hear sounds of 25 decibels or less in speech frequencies — the researchers found that about 30 million Americans, or 12.7 per cent of the population, had hearing loss in both ears.
When the impairment in at least one ear was counted, the number rose to about 48 million or 20.3 per cent.
Previous estimates were 21 to 29 million.
"This gives us the real scope of the problem for the first time and shows us how big of a problem hearing loss really is," Lin said.
The overall risk of hearing loss may be decreasing over time, the researchers said, but the prevalence is expected to rise because of the aging population.
The study's authors called for more research to understand the impact of hearing loss on cognition and how rehabilitation might help ease those effects.
The study was funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
About three per cent of the Canadian population aged 12 or older reported some type of difficulty with their hearing in Statistics Canada's 2003 Canadian Community Health Survey. About 11 per cent of those aged 65 or older, an estimated 402,000 seniors, said they had a hearing problem.
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