Global and regional hearing impairment prevalence: an analysis of 42 studies in 29 countries

Hearing impairment is a leading cause of disease burden, yet population-based studies that measure hearing impairment are rare. We estimate regional and global hearing impairment prevalence from sparse data and calculate corresponding uncertainty intervals.

We accessed papers from a published literature review and obtained additional detailed data tabulations from investigators. We estimated the prevalence of hearing impairment by region, sex, age and hearing level using a Bayesian hierarchical model, a method that is effective for sparse data. As the primary objective of modelling was to produce regional and global prevalence estimates, including for those regions with scarce to no data, models were evaluated using cross-validation.