Table 1.
Sociodemographic and health characteristics of participants aged 50 years or older from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys 2000–2006 and 2009–2012, overall and by hearing status
| Total (n 1639) | Hearing loss† (n 545) | Normal hearing (n 1094) | P value | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean or % | sd | Mean or % | sd | Mean or % | sd | ||
| Age (years) | 61·8 | 0·4 | 68·8 | 0·9 | 59·1 | 0·3 | <0·0001 |
| Mediterranean Diet Score | |||||||
| ≤3 | 52·0 | – | 55·3 | – | 50·7 | – | 0·2804 |
| >3 | 48·0 | – | 44·7 | – | 49·3 | – | |
| Sex | |||||||
| Men | 42·6 | – | 51·6 | – | 39·0 | – | 0·0119 |
| Women | 57·4 | – | 48·4 | – | 61·0 | – | |
| Race | |||||||
| Non-Hispanic White | 78·8 | – | 83·4 | – | 76·9 | – | 0·0710 |
| Non-Hispanic Black | 9·5 | – | 6·3 | – | 10·8 | – | |
| Hispanic | 7·3 | – | 5·8 | – | 7·9 | – | |
| Other | 4·4 | – | 4·4 | – | 4·3 | – | |
| Education | |||||||
| High school or less | 39·2 | – | 54·0 | – | 33·4 | – | <0·0001 |
| Some college | 29·3 | – | 28·4 | – | 29·7 | – | |
| College graduate | 31·5 | – | 17·6 | – | 36·9 | – | |
| Family income to poverty ratio | 3·3 | 0·1 | 2·9 | 0·1 | 3·4 | 0·1 | <0·0001 |
| Physical activity level | |||||||
| Vigorous | 18·0 | – | 10·8 | – | 20·8 | – | 0·0014 |
| Moderate | 35·2 | – | 32·4 | – | 36·3 | – | |
| No vigorous or moderate | 46·8 | – | 56·9 | – | 42·9 | – | |
| BMI (kg/m2) | |||||||
| <25 | 26·8 | – | 28·0 | – | 26·3 | – | 0·7002 |
| 25–29·9 | 36·4 | – | 37·4 | – | 36·1 | – | |
| ≥30 | 36·8 | – | 34·6 | – | 37·6 | – | |
| Current smoking status, yes | 17·5 | – | 13·5 | – | 19·0 | – | 0·1499 |
| Chronic health conditions (hypertension, high cholesterol, diabetes), yes | 70·1 | – | 75·4 | – | 68·1 | – | 0·0148 |
| Noise exposure (recreational, firearm or occupational), yes | 51·8 | – | 58·2 | – | 49·3 | – | 0·0441 |
| Veteran status, yes | 16·1 | – | 25·0 | – | 12·6 | – | <0·0001 |
†
Hearing loss was defined as a pure-tone average at speech frequencies (0·5, 1, 2 and 4 kHz) >25 dB.