“The reduction in hearing loss in older Americans has important implications for our society,” says corresponding writer, Dr. Esme Fuller-Thomson, director of University of Toronto’s Institute of Life Course and Aging and professor on the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work.
“Hearing loss is one of the most common chronic problems affecting older adults. It can negatively impact their health and quality of life. This finding is particularly encouraging as the Baby Boom cohort progresses into older adulthood. The decline in prevalence of hearing loss can partly offset the burden on families, caregivers, and the healthcare system.”
The research makes use of information from 10 consecutive waves (2008-2017) of the nationally consultant American Community Survey. In every year, the survey engaged a pattern of roughly half one million American respondents aged 65 and older, together with each those that lived in establishments reminiscent of long-term care houses and those that lived in the neighborhood.
A total of 5.4 million older Americans had been included within the research. Hearing issues had been assessed based mostly on response to the query “Is this person deaf or does he/she have serious difficulty hearing?”
While the research noticed an total decline in severe listening to loss amongst older adults, one shocking discovering emerged.
“Interestingly, we found that the improvements observed are mostly among females,” says co-author ZhiDi Deng, a pharmacy pupil at University of Toronto. “In fact, the downward trend in hearing loss appears to be entirely driven by declines within the female population after taking into account age and race.”
Over the last decade, the chances of significant listening to loss declined 10% amongst females. In distinction, males skilled a 2% improve in listening to loss throughout this identical interval. In subgroup analyses of women and men aged 65-74, 75-84, and 85+, the identical sample seems to carry true.
After adjusting for age and race, the chances of listening to loss over the last decade confirmed reductions in females of all age cohorts and demonstrated will increase in males of all age cohorts, except males aged 75-84.
The authors proposed a number of potential explanations for the noticed findings, together with intercourse/gender variations in anatomy, smoking habits, and noise exposures. However, the dataset utilized by this research doesn’t permit exploration of the potential mechanisms inflicting the variations in listening to loss.
“More research is needed to understand the extraordinary differences in the 10-year prevalence of hearing loss between older American males and females,” stated Fuller-Thomson. “Identifying the causes and driver behind the sex differences in hearing loss can help us design preventative strategies to better support our aging population.”
Source: Eurekalert
