Assessing hearing health inequalities using routine health information systems.

Hearing loss is a significant public health challenge, with prevalence estimates based on projected age demographics rather than actual public health needs. This study aimed to quantify hearing loss using real-world data from primary care and explore local patterns and trends from 2013 to 2022 in Cheshire and Merseyside counties of Northwest England. Annual hearing loss prevalence was measured using an ecological space-time analysis of 2.7 million primary care records from Cheshire and Merseyside Integrated Care System. We applied cluster and outlier analysis with geographically weighted regression to examine local deprivation effects. We detected spatial clusters of high prevalence of hearing loss in Cheshire and an increasing trend in hearing loss prevalence in Halton. Deprivation accounted for up to 35% of hearing loss variance in 2020. Monitoring spatial patterns of hearing loss is crucial for addressing health inequalities and guiding targeted prevention and intervention strategies.