Hearing Disability in the United States Adults: Results from the American Community Survey 2012–2016

Details

• Personal Author:
  Chen L ; Hoffman HJ ; Li C-M ; Themann, Christa L.
• Description:
  Background: Serious hearing loss (disability) limits the ability of many individuals to function independently. In 2013, the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) revised and updated their Urban-Rural Classification Scheme of Counties, based on population density, to examine health disparities. We used this classification to analyze the Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS), which is uniquely capable of generating small area estimates of reported disabilities to document disparities at local administrative levels. Methods: The ACS collects data from a rolling sample of 250,000 households each month on over 40 topics, including disability, in the civilian non-institutionalized U.S. population. Since 2008, the ACS has asked about difficulties with hearing ("deaf or have serious difficulty hearing"). By aggregating five years of data collection, the ACS can generate reliable estimates for small geographic areas. Prevalence of hearing disability was estimated from the 2012-2016 ACS by sex, age, race/ ethnicity, the economically-depressed Appalachian area, and the 2013 NCHS Urban-Rural County Classification. ArcGIS hot spot analysis tool was used to identify clusters with high or low prevalence of hearing disability. Results: Prevalence of hearing disability in adults was 4.6%; 5.4% for males and 3.7% for females (p<0.001). Prevalence increased with age: 1.1%, 3.5%, and 15.2% for 18-44, 45-64, and 65+ years (p<0.001). Prevalence was highest in rural micropolitan (5.8%) and noncore (5.6%) areas, decreasing with increasing population density; lowest prevalences were in small metro (5.2%), medium metro (4.7%), large fringe metro (3.9%), and large central metro metropolitan (3.5%). Prevalence was higher in Appalachia (4.7%) compared to elsewhere (4.0%, p<0.001). American Indians/Alaska Natives (6.9%) and non-Hispanic whites (5.5%) had higher prevalence than non-Hispanic African Americans (2.8%) or Hispanics (2.8%). States in the East South Central region had the highest (5.7%) and the Middle Atlantic region the lowest (3.9%) prevalence of hearing disability. West Virginia had the highest prevalence (7.7%) of hearing disability among all states. Conclusion: Hearing disability disparities in the U.S. exist for males, selected racial/ethnic groups, impoverished (Appalachia) and low-density rural geographic areas. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Age Factors Aging Epidemiology Healthcare Disparities Hearing Loss Hearing Loss, Noise-Induced Occupational Health Race Factors Safety Sex Characteristics
• Keywords:
  Age Factors Health Disparities Hearing Impairment Hearing Loss Racial Factors Sex Factors
• ISSN:
  0742-3152
• Publisher:
  Association for Research in Otolaryngology
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Abstract or Summary
• Place as Subject:
  Maryland ; Ohio ; OSHA Region 3 ; OSHA Region 5
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  DART - Division of Applied Research and Technology
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Volume:
  42
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20060896
• Citation:
  Abstr Midwinter Res Meet Assoc Res Otolaryngol 2019 Feb; 42:699-700
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2019
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Source Full Name:
  Abstracts of the 42nd Midwinter Research Meeting of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology, February 9-13, 2019, Baltimore, Maryland
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:afff2856d29d6899bb4003cdcfe406c753d283511af1c2445ea434febeb53f77b532bde986fdeb3745d8c460d340e0cb26611ee3f1ed59b921dd6d3f6c818399
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/224667/cdc_224667_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 439.06 KB ]