Proportion of Older Adults Owning, Using Hearing Aids Increasing

A research letter published in JAMA Internal Medicine found the number of older Americans who reported owning and using hearing aids grew from 2011 to 2018, reports HealthDay News . The investigators analyzed data from the 2011, 2015, and 2018 cycles of the National Health Aging and Trends Study. They noted an increase in the overall proportion of participants 70 and older who owned and used hearing aids, from 15 percent to 16.9 percent and 18.5 percent in 2011, 2015, and 2018, respectively. The segment of older adults who owned hearing aids rose as they got older. Over time, fewer African Americans owned and used hearing aids than whites, and witnessed a smaller overall increase in the proportion owning and using hearing aids during the study period. Across subgroups, the smallest expansion in hearing aid use was among African American women, with growth of 5.8 percent versus 28.7 percent among white men. An overall decline in the proportion of hearing aid ownership and use was seen by older adults living at less than 100 percent of the federal poverty level. "These data corroborate and build on previous cross-sectional findings of disparities in hearing care by offering a longitudinal analysis in a nationally representative sample of older adults in the United States," the authors concluded.