Hearing Impairment, Household Composition, Marital Status, and Mortality Among U.S. Adults

Social support, social networks, social cohesion and health

Justin T Denney, Jason D Boardman and Anna Zajacova

The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, 2021, vol. 76, issue 1, 201-208

Abstract: ObjectivesThis study investigates associations between hearing impairment, household composition, marital status, and all-cause mortality for a representative sample of United States adults aged 40 and older (N = 198,902).MethodsWe use data from 11 waves of the National Health Interview Survey (2004–2014) linked to prospective mortality status through 2015. The risk of mortality over the follow-up period is estimated using Cox proportional hazard models.ResultsCompared to those with good to excellent hearing, adults with moderate to severe hearing impairments and deaf adults had 11% and 21% higher risk of death from any cause over the follow-up period, respectively. Household composition and marital status, as indicators of household social support systems, associated independently with the risk of mortality but did not substantively change the association between hearing impairment and mortality.DiscussionHearing impairment represents an important contributor to the length of life for adults age 40 and older, independent of other important and established determinants of mortality.

Keywords: Hearing impairment; Household composition; Marital status; Mortality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/geronb/gbz157 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:geronb:v:76:y:2021:i:1:p:201-208.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

The Journals of Gerontology: Series B is currently edited by Psychological Sciences - S. Duke Han, PhD and Social Sciences - Jessica A Kelley, PhD, FGSA

More articles in The Journals of Gerontology: Series B from The Gerontological Society of America Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().