Regional patterns and trends of hearing loss in England: evidence from the English longitudinal study of ageing (ELSA) and implications for health policy.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Hearing loss (HL) is a significant public health concern globally and is estimated to affect over nine million people in England. The aim of this research was to explore the regional patterns and trends of HL in a representative longitudinal prospective cohort study of the English population aged 50 and over.

Methods

We used the full dataset (74,699 person-years) of self-reported hearing data from all eight Waves of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) (2002-2017). We examined the geographical identifiers of the participants at the Government Office Region (GOR) level and the geographically based Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD). The primary outcome measure was self-reported HL; it consisted of a merged category of people who rated their hearing as f

SUBMITTER: Tsimpida D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7737370 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature