Race- and sex-specific differences in the risk of incident hearing loss and associated factors

This study reports the incidence of hearing loss and associated factors, and differences across sex and race groups. Participants were from a longitudinal community-based cohort study. Hearing loss was defined as a pure-tone average of thresholds at frequencies 0.5, 1.0, 2.0, and 4.0 kHz > 25 dB HL in the worse ear. We used Cox proportional hazards regression models to determine demographic and health-related factors associated with incident hearing loss, in the entire sample and across sex (male/female) and race (White/Black) groups, separately. This study included 754 participants without hearing loss at baseline (mean age 56.7 [SD 16.2] years; 67.6% female; 24.2% racial Minority [22.9% Black]), contributing 3,771 person years (PY). The incidence rate of hearing loss was 44.8 (95% CI 38.5, 52.1) per 1000 PY, and incidence increased with age. In age-adjusted models, older age (unadjusted), male sex, noise exposure, and > 5 to 15 smoking pack years were associated with incident hearing loss; associations with noise exposure and smoking pack years did not remain in age-sex adjusted models. Some factors associated with incident hearing loss varied across sex and race groups. Interventions to prevent or manage hearing loss, which is a common public health concern, may vary across demographic groups.