Hearing Difficulty Experienced by Adults in the United States

Hearing aids are commonly offered as a means to help individuals with hearing loss ameliorate their hearing difficulties. Madans, Weeks, and Elgaddal (2021), using data from the 2019 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), examined hearing aid use by those 45 years of age and older as well as reported hearing difficulties by all adults 18 years and older even when using a hearing aid.

These authors reported that around 15 percent of adults (aged 18 years and older) had difficulty hearing even with the use of a hearing aid, with a higher percentage of older adults reporting difficulty than younger adults.

When examining hearing difficulties reported by those aged 45 years and older, a higher percentage of men than women reported difficulty hearing.

Less than 10 percent of individuals aged 45 years and older reported using a hearing aid. When examining hearing aid use by this age group, a greater percentage of men than women used hearing aids and a greater percentage of individuals aged 65 years and older used hearing aids than those between the ages of 45 and 64 years.

While this data brief mentions that hearing difficulty varied as a function of race/ethnicity and age by those 45 years and older, hearing aid use as a function of race/ethnicity was not provided in the report.

Reference

Madans JH, Weeks JD, Elgaddal N. (2021) Hearing difficulties among adults: United States, 2019. NCHS Data Brief, no 414. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. DOI:10.15620/cdc:107540.