Cognitive Performance, Sociodemographic Factors, Pure-Tone Audiometry, and their Association with Speech Discrimination: A Prospective Population-Based Study of 1,061 Older Adults.

Hearing loss is increasingly recognized as a chronic disease state with important health sequelae. Although considered a central component of routine audiometric testing, the degree to which various patient factors influence speech discrimination is poorly characterized to date. The primary objective of the current work was to describe associations of cognitive performance, sociodemographic factors, and pure-tone audiometry with speech discrimination in older adults. Prospective study. Olmsted County, Minnesota. There were 1,061 study participants 50 years or older at enrollment in the population-based Mayo Clinic Study of Aging between November 2004 and December 2019 who underwent formal audiometric and cognitive testing included in the current investigation. The primary outcome measure was word recognition scores (WRSs; measured as <100% vs 100% as well as continuous), with pure-tone averages (PTAs; 0.5, 1, 2, and 3 kHz), age, sex, years of education, state area deprivation index (ADI) quintiles, and global cognition z scores as explanatory features. The mean (SD) age among the 1,061 participants was 76 (9) years with 528 (50%) males. Participant age [OR (95% CI) for a 10-year increase of 1.8 (1.4-2.3), p < 0.001], male sex [OR = 2.6 (1.9-3.7), p < 0.001], and PTA [OR for a 10-dB hearing loss increase of 2.4 (2.1-2.8), p < 0.001] were all significantly associated with <100% WRSs, with the greatest explanatory ability attributable to the PTA. Years of education ( p = 0.9), state ADI quintile ( p = 0.6), and global cognitive performance ( p = 0.2) were not associated with WRS. The multivariable model demonstrated strong predictive ability for less than perfect WRSs, with a c index of 0.854. Similar results were seen for WRSs analyzed as continuous, with the multivariable model resulting in an R2 value of 0.433. Although PTA exhibited the greatest influence on speech discrimination, advancing age and male sex both independently increased the likelihood of having worse speech discrimination among older adults, even after accounting for years of education, neighborhood-level socioeconomic disadvantage, and cognitive function. These findings help identify patient factors that can be instrumental when designing screening programs for adult-onset hearing loss.

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Conflicts of interest: R.C.P. has been a consultant for Roche, Biogen, Merck, Eisai, Genentech, and Nestle; receives publishing royalties from Mild Cognitive Impairment (Oxford University Press, 2003) and UpToDate; and receives research support from the U.S. National Institutes of Health. N.S.R. is on the advisory board of Neosensory and receives funding from the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute on Aging. M.V. has received research funding from F. Hoffmann-La Roche and Biogen in the past, consults for F. Hoffmann-La Roche, receives research funding from the National Institutes of Health, and has equity ownership in Abbott Laboratories, Johnson and Johnson, Medtronic, AbbVie, and Amgen. All other authors declare no competing interests.