Burns Shane D, West Jessica S
Population Studies Center, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
Department of Head and Neck Surgery & Communication Sciences, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC, USA.
J Aging Health. 2025 Jun;37(5-6):356-367. doi: 10.1177/08982643241251939. Epub 2024 May 6.
Hearing difficulty is prevalent in older adulthood and projected to increase via global aging, particularly among men. Currently, there is limited research on how this gender disparity might vary by country. Using 2018 data ( = 29,480) from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) international family of studies, we investigate gender disparities in hearing difficulty among respondents ages 55-89 from the United States ( = 12,566), Mexico ( = 10,762), and Korea ( = 6152) with country-specific ordinal logistic regression models that progressively adjust for demographic, social, and health indicators. In the United States, men's hearing difficulty disadvantage was consistently observed. In Mexico, men's hearing difficulty disadvantage was explained by the interactive effect of gender and age group but resurfaced after adjusting for comorbidities. In Korea, there was consistently no gender difference in hearing difficulty. Our results highlight the heterogeneity in older men's hearing difficulty disadvantage among a diverse group of aging countries.
听力障碍在老年人群中普遍存在，并且预计随着全球老龄化的加剧而增加，男性尤其如此。目前，关于这种性别差异如何因国家而异的研究有限。利用来自健康与退休研究（HRS）国际研究系列的2018年数据（n = 29480），我们使用特定国家的有序逻辑回归模型，逐步调整人口、社会和健康指标，调查了美国（n = 12566）、墨西哥（n = 10762）和韩国（n = 6152）55至89岁受访者在听力障碍方面的性别差异。在美国，男性在听力障碍方面的劣势一直存在。在墨西哥，男性在听力障碍方面的劣势可由性别和年龄组的交互作用来解释，但在调整合并症后又重新出现。在韩国，听力障碍方面一直不存在性别差异。我们的研究结果凸显了在不同老龄化国家中，老年男性在听力障碍方面劣势的异质性。
