{"doi":"10.1093/geroni/igad002","title":"The Association Between Self-Reported Hearing Loss and Loss of Usual Source of Health Care Among Older Medicare Beneficiaries: Evidence From the National Health and Aging Trends Study","abstract":"Background and Objectives: The purpose of the study is to investigate the association of hearing loss (HL) with maintaining a usual source of care (USOC). Research Design and Methods: In this study we implemented a time-to-event analysis using data from the National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS), a nationally representative study of older Medicare beneficiaries in the United States. The study sample included 2 114 older adults, aged 65+ years, 58.9% female, 20.4% Black, who reported having a USOC during the baseline round of NHATS and who remained community-dwelling during the 2011-2018 study period. Based on self-report measures at baseline, individuals' hearing status was classified into 3 categories: no HL, treated HL (hearing aids users), and untreated HL (nonhearing aid users who reported having hearing difficulties). Time-to-event was computed as the time elapsed between baseline and the study round in which the respondent first reported no longer having a USOC. Discrete-time proportional hazard models were estimated. Results: In fully adjusted models, untreated HL at baseline was associated with a hazard ratio (HR) for losing one's USOC 1.60 (95% confidence interval: 1.01, 2.56) times higher than that of participants with no HL. We found no HR differences between the treated- and no-HL group. Discussion and Implications: Untreated HL at baseline was associated with a higher probability of losing one's USOC over time. Noninvasive interventions such as hearing aids may be beneficial for maintaining a USOC.","journal":"Innovation in Aging","year":2023,"id":382970,"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":2,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.8884,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":476706,"name":"Lama Assi","orcid":"0000-0001-5855-3896","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":673897,"name":"Danielle S. Powell","orcid":"0000-0003-3447-4450","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":303109,"name":"Kayti Luu","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":482270,"name":"Nicholas S. Reed","orcid":"0000-0003-0410-6067","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":794117,"name":"Emmanuel E. Garcia Morales","orcid":"0000-0003-2239-6125","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":27,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:17:25.158896Z","pmid":"36908652","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":[]}