Background: United States trends in the prevalence of hearing impairment have not been reported. These trends could be rising due to changes in environmental noise exposure; alternatively, rates could be declining via a compression of morbidity hypothesis that has been postulated to be occurring in older adults residing in developed nations.
Methods: The National Health Interview Survey is a continuous multistage area probability survey of the U.S. civilian noninstitutionalized population living at addressed dwellings. Adults within randomly selected households were administered a chronic conditions list that included questions about hearing impairment. Complete data were available on 107,100 white and 17,904 African-American adults aged 18 years and older in survey years 1986-1995. Race-specific rates of hearing impairment were adjusted for age and sample survey design.
Results: Annual age-adjusted rates of some hearing impairment ranged from 11.0% to 12.7% in whites and 5.9% to 8.5% in African Americans. Rates of severe bilateral hearing impairment in these race groups were 0.7% to 1.1% and 0.1% to 0.5%, respectively. There was no evidence of change in rates of hearing impairment among participants stratified by race and 10-year age groups.
Conclusions: Reported rates of hearing impairment remained relatively stable in the U.S. noninstitutionalized population from 1986 to 1995. There was no evidence of change in rates in adults grouped into 10-year age groups. Population-based studies designed to include clinical and self-reported measures of hearing impairment are needed to further examine trends in hearing impairment.