Estimating Accurately the National Prevalence Rate of Hearing Loss
Class
Article
Department
Psychology
Faculty Mentor
Karl White
Presentation Type
Poster Presentation
Abstract
This study reanalyzes data from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III) reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1998 by A. Niskar and colleagues on the prevalence rates of hearing loss. The study looks at children ages 6-19 and the prevalence rates reported are generalizable to the United States. Two main refinements were made to the original analysis: 1) Overall hearing loss was broken down into permanent and fluctuating hearing loss, and 2) the better ear prevalence rates were emphasized rather than the worse ear. Approximately 14% of the originally reported amount of hearing loss was nonpermanent. By omitting the delineation of the two types of hearing loss patterns and trends are masked. Furthermore, the better ear is a superior gauge on how prevalent hearing loss is in this population for it more accurately portrays the real disability in the child. Permanent hearing loss at a decibel level of 16 or more is 1.23% while fluctuating hearing loss is 0.20%. These more accurate estimates will provide more precise analysis of the patterns and trends that may otherwise be hidden. It is recommended that future analyses of national hearing loss prevalence rates be calculated by including these refinements where possible. Further, similar to that done by Niskar, the differences by age, gender, and race-ethnicity are calculated. Differences by race-ethnicity were found in fluctuating hearing loss. A race-ethnicity by gender interaction was found for permanent hearing loss.
Start Date
4-9-2015 10:30 AM
Estimating Accurately the National Prevalence Rate of Hearing Loss
This study reanalyzes data from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III) reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1998 by A. Niskar and colleagues on the prevalence rates of hearing loss. The study looks at children ages 6-19 and the prevalence rates reported are generalizable to the United States. Two main refinements were made to the original analysis: 1) Overall hearing loss was broken down into permanent and fluctuating hearing loss, and 2) the better ear prevalence rates were emphasized rather than the worse ear. Approximately 14% of the originally reported amount of hearing loss was nonpermanent. By omitting the delineation of the two types of hearing loss patterns and trends are masked. Furthermore, the better ear is a superior gauge on how prevalent hearing loss is in this population for it more accurately portrays the real disability in the child. Permanent hearing loss at a decibel level of 16 or more is 1.23% while fluctuating hearing loss is 0.20%. These more accurate estimates will provide more precise analysis of the patterns and trends that may otherwise be hidden. It is recommended that future analyses of national hearing loss prevalence rates be calculated by including these refinements where possible. Further, similar to that done by Niskar, the differences by age, gender, and race-ethnicity are calculated. Differences by race-ethnicity were found in fluctuating hearing loss. A race-ethnicity by gender interaction was found for permanent hearing loss.