Racial and ethnic inequalities are pervasive across hearing health care, including hearing aid use.1 There is a paucity of research on inequalities in hearing health care that consider the intersections of race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status (SES). 

In a nationally representative sample of US older adults, lower percentages of Black and Hispanic NHATS participants reported using a hearing aid compared with White participants. Similarly, Black and Hispanic participants across income levels had significantly lower self-reported hearing aid uptake than their White counterparts.

Given the persistence of racial gaps in hearing aid use after controlling for income and other socioeconomic factors, more nuanced investigations are needed into the implications of race, ethnicity, and SES for hearing aid use to elucidate barriers to uptake. While such racial gaps may be associated with economic factors and barriers to routine health care access, they are not fully explained by traditional indicators of SES, including income. Additionally, standard markers of high SES may not adequately characterize or quantify the relationships between SES and race.4 Future studies should consider factors such as economic hardship, wealth, access to bank credit, occupational or economic returns on education, and purchasing power.4,5

Study limitations include use of aggregated race and ethnicity categories that may not represent the substantial variability in racial and ethnic minoritized communities and inability to account for immigration status, experience with and role of systemic and interpersonal discrimination and racism, and other social and environmental factors affecting hearing aid use. Future research is needed to explain the downstream implications of these factors. Nevertheless, these findings emphasize that racial and ethnic disparities in hearing aid use would likely persist without more targeted efforts to increase access and reduce inequalities for populations at risk for hearing loss.

Bessen S, Zhang W, Garcia Morales EE, Akré EL, Reed NS. Hearing Aid Use at the Intersection of Race, Ethnicity, and Socioeconomic Status. JAMA Health Forum. 2024;5(11):e243854. doi:10.1001/jamahealthforum.2024.3854