Nearly one in five Americans age 12 and older experience hearing loss severe enough to interfere with day-to-day communication.The new research, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine,
examined data from the National Health and Nutritional Examination
Surveys, or NHNES, which has collected health information from thousands
of Americans since 1971. The researchers looked specifically at people
age 12 and older — men and women of all races — whose hearing had been
tested during NHANES exams.