1. Audiograms and Prevalence of Hearing Loss in U.S. Children and Adolescents 6-19 Years of Age.
- Author
-
Humes, Larry
- Subjects
- *
LOGISTIC regression analysis , *SOCIOECONOMIC factors , *QUESTIONNAIRES , *AUDIOMETRY , *DESCRIPTIVE statistics , *AGE distribution , *SURVEYS , *ODDS ratio , *STATISTICS , *HEARING disorders , *HEARING levels , *CONFIDENCE intervals , *DATA analysis software , *HEARING , *OTOSCOPY , *IMPEDANCE audiometry , *ADOLESCENCE , *CHILDREN - Abstract
Purpose: The aim of this study was to determine median audiograms and prevalence of hearing loss for U.S. 6- to 19-year-olds. Method: U.S. national audiometric data for 2,709 six- to 19-year-olds from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2017-2020 were analyzed. Analyses were primarily descriptive and relied on distribution-free medians, cumulative distribution functions (CDFs), and population-weighted prevalence estimates. Differences between CDFs were examined using Cohen's h effect size. Results are presented for the age range of 6-19 years. Main effects of sex, age, and race/ethnicity were examined. Results: Differences in the audiograms between the sexes and among the various race/ethnicity groups were minor, but age group differences were notable. Pure-tone thresholds at 500 and 8000 Hz for the 6- to 9-year age group were 3-5 dB higher (worse) than those of the other age groups. The overall prevalence of hearing loss among 6- to 19-year-olds, defined as either of the puretone averages (PTAs) for 500, 1000, and 2000 Hz (PTA512) or 3000, 4000, 6000, and 8000 Hz (PTA3468k) exceeding 15 dB HL in either ear, was 11.24% (95% confidence interval [10.00%, 12.48%]). Binary logistic regression analyses found the odds of hearing loss to be significantly higher for individuals from families with a low income as well as for those with abnormal otoscopy or abnormal tympanometry. Conclusions: For children and adolescents in the United States, hearing was unaffected by differences in sex and race/ethnicity, with only age impacting pure-tone thresholds and only at the lowest (500 Hz) and highest (8000 Hz) frequencies examined. The overall prevalence of hearing loss was about 11%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
- Full Text
- View/download PDF