{"doi":"10.1093/gerona/glaf250","title":"The association between hearing impairment and incident depression in older adults: a longitudinal analysis","abstract":"BACKGROUND: Hearing loss (HL) is common in older adults and is associated with several adverse health outcomes. Although previous research has demonstrated a link between hearing impairment and depression, most studies have been cross-sectional or relied on a single baseline measure of hearing. To investigate the association between longitudinal, time-varying audiometric measures of hearing and incident depression in older adults. A secondary aim was to assess whether hearing aid use modifies this association over time in those with moderate to severe HL. METHODS: We included 1260 participants who underwent pure-tone audiometry at baseline, 18 months, and 36 months. Depression was defined using the CES-D-10 scale, with a cut-score of ≥8. Cox proportional hazards analyses were used to examine the link between hearing status (normal, mild HL, moderate/severe HL) and depression, adjusted for demographic, lifestyle, and clinical variables. RESULTS: Over a median follow-up of 7.3 years, participants with moderate to severe HL had a higher risk of incident depression (adjusted HR [aHR]: 1.24; 95% CI, 1.08-1.43, P < 0.01) compared with participants with normal hearing. Hearing aid use (≥6 h self-reported use per day on average) in those with moderate to severe HL was associated with significantly reduced risk of incident depression (aHR: 0.65; 95% CI, 0.49-0.87, P < .01). CONCLUSION: Moderate to severe HL is a significant risk factor for incident depression among older adults. Hearing aid use attenuated this risk. Future research should investigate mechanistic pathways linking HL and mood disturbances.","journal":"The Journals of Gerontology Series A","year":2025,"id":580551,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9636,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1491333,"name":"Mark W Cox","orcid":"0009-0008-6404-8691","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":302335,"name":"Katharine Brewster","orcid":"0000-0003-4011-7206","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":284809,"name":"Mojtaba Lotfaliany","orcid":"0000-0001-6594-9004","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":284812,"name":"Mohammadreza Mohebbi","orcid":"0000-0001-9713-7211","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1280577,"name":"Gary Rance","orcid":"0000-0002-7168-5217","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":264292,"name":"Robyn L. Woods","orcid":"0000-0003-1249-6149","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":351161,"name":"Carlene Britt","orcid":"0000-0002-9429-6054","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1491763,"name":"John J Mcneil","orcid":null,"position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":56340,"name":"Michael Berk","orcid":"0000-0002-5554-6946","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":453418,"name":"Malcolm Forbes","orcid":"0000-0002-8339-6471","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":47,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:58:38.868285Z","pmid":"41206658","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}