Prevalence of age-related hearing loss in older adults: Blue Mountains Study.

A recent article in the Archives investigated the prevalence of hearing loss among US adults aged 20 to 69 years, based on data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES, 1999-2004). A hearing loss prevalence of 16.1% was observed in this study. In addition, associations between demographic characteristics, noise exposure, cardiovascular risk factors, and hearing loss were assessed. Potential associations between the severity of hearing loss and the described risk factors were not explored. We aimed to confirm the associations between severity of hearing loss and the risk factors assessed by Agrawal et al and to compare our prevalence findings with theirs.