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Objectives:

To report population-based prevalence of hearing impairment based on speech recognition in noise testing in a large and inclusive sample of UK adults aged 40 to 69 years. The present study is the first to report such data. Prevalence of tinnitus and use of hearing aids is also reported.

Design:

The research was conducted using the UK Biobank resource. The better-ear unaided speech reception threshold was measured adaptively using the Digit Triplet Test (n= 164,770). Self-report data on tinnitus, hearing aid use, noise exposure, as well as demographic variables were collected.

Results:

Overall, 10.7% of adults (95% confidence interval [CI] 10.5–10.9%) had significant hearing impairment. Prevalence of tinnitus was 16.9%(95% CI 16.6–17.1%) and hearing aid use was 2.0%(95% CI 1.9–2.1%). Odds of hearing impairment increased with age, with a history of work-and music-related noise exposure, for …