Racial-Ethnic Disparities in Hearing Aid Use: Price Responsiveness Among Older Adults with Hearing Loss.

Objective: To explore the role of racial-ethnic background, income, residential context, and historic variation in hearing aid (HA) price HA usage among a nationally representative cohort of older adults with hearing loss.

Methods: Multilevel logistic regression models evaluated data from the 2012 through 2017 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) to 1) compare historic HA use between subgroups, 2) test for differential responsiveness to price changes between racial and ethnic groups, and 3) assess the relative role of demographic characteristics and HA use.

Results: Between 2012 and 2017, the price of economy HAs decreased by 5% while HA use among Non-Hispanic (NH) Whites and Hispanics with hearing loss increased by 30% and 20% respectively, but usage among NH-Blacks increased by less than 10%.

Visual attention and hearing loss: past and current perspectives.

Background: It is reasonable to expect that deaf individuals require the use of vision for purposes other than those needed by hearing persons. For example, without the use of hearing, one would need to scan the environment visually to determine if someone was approaching rather than listening for footsteps or a name being called. Furthermore, these experiential differences could alter the development of neural organization of sensory systems of deaf persons.