330239
Hearing impairment rehabilitation through use of hearing aids and cochlear implants: Monitoring trends in age-specific prevalence for U.S. Healthy People 2020
Methods: Hearing healthcare goals include increasing rehabilitation through hearing aid (HA) use, cochlear implants (CIs), and other assistive listening devices. These objectives require use of the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), and Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) to collect and track annual prevalence. Estimates have tolerance limits of <30% relative standard error.
Results: In 2007, 28.6% of adults aged 20-69 years reported a hearing examination in the past 5 years; 38.5% for adults 70+ years. Prevalence of HA use, 2001-2012, increased from 25.2% to 30.1% among adults aged 70+ years with moderate-or-greater hearing impairment (HI), >35 dB hearing level (HL); however, HA prevalence remained unchanged at about 16% for adults aged 20-69 years. CI surgeries increased 2.5-fold from 2001-2012, while overall prevalence among severe-to-profound HI (>70 dB HL) individuals rose from 0.44% to 0.97%. The highest prevalence of CIs was for preschool-aged children with severe-to-profound HI, increasing from 12.6% to 21.2%. The largest relative increase in CI surgeries was for severe-to-profound HI adults aged 65+ years, increasing 4-fold from 0.13% to 0.49%.
Conclusion: HP is focused on prevention and health promotion. This report describes new methods developed for estimating and tracking the prevalence of HA use and CIs for the U.S. HI population.
Learning Areas:
Administer health education strategies, interventions and programsAssessment of individual and community needs for health education
Biostatistics, economics
Clinical medicine applied in public health
Epidemiology
Provision of health care to the public
Learning Objectives:
Explain how hearing questionnaire and exam measures in the U.S. health interview and examination surveys (National Health Interview Survey [NHIS] and National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey [NHANES]) are used in combination to estimate age-specific prevalence of hearing aid use to monitor the Healthy People 2010/2020 hearing rehabilitation objective
Explain how the very large U.S. database contained in the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) can be analyzed by sex, race/ethnicity, and age to calculate the prevalence of new cochlear implant surgeries annually in the United States for people with severe-to-profound hearing loss
Demonstrate the importance of creating and maintaining the methodology and data resources for monitoring trends in achieving national health objectives in the Healthy People 2020 topic area for Hearing and Other Sensory or Communication Disorders
Keyword(s): Data Collection and Surveillance, Special Populations
Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have directed the Epidemiology and Statistics Program, Division of Scientific Programs, National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), National Institutes of Health (NIH) since 1992. This research program focuses on the prevalence, incidence, risk factors, and preventive interventions for disorders in all 7 mission areas of the Institute: hearing, balance, smell, taste, voice, speech, language. I am also the Instituteâs coordinator for measuring and tracking hearing healthcare objectives in Healthy People 2010/HP2020.
Any relevant financial relationships? No
I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.