Hearing Loss and Risk of Overall, Injury-Related, and Cardiovascular Mortality: The Kangbuk Samsung Health Study

Hearing loss (HL) has been related to cardiovascular risk factors as well as prevalence of cardiovascular disease itself. We evaluated the association of HL with overall, injury-related, and cardiovascular mortality. A cohort study included 580,798 Korean adults (mean age: 39.7) who attended a screening exam between 2002 and 2016 with a follow-up of up to 17 years. HL was defined as a pure-tone average of thresholds at 0.5, 1.0, and 2.0 kHz ≥25 dB (decibels) in the better ear and further categorized into mild (25–<40 dB) and moderate-to-severe (≥40 dB). Overall and cause-specific mortality was ascertained through linkage to national death records. During median follow-up of 8.4 years, 6581 overall deaths, 977 cardiovascular deaths, and 1161 injury-related deaths were identified. Compared to participants with normal hearing, multivariable-adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) for overall mortality among participants with mild and moderate-to-severe HL were 1.13 (1.05–1.21) and 1.30 (1.16–1.46), respectively. Corresponding HRs (95% CIs) for cardiovascular mortality were 1.32 (1.10–1.58) and 1.53 (1.16–2.01), respectively, and corresponding HRs (95% CIs) for injury-related mortality were 1.03 (0.81–1.31) and 1.64 (1.13–2.36), respectively. In this large cohort, HL was positively and independently associated with overall, cardiovascular, and injury-related mortality. A significantly elevated risk of cardiovascular mortality started from mild HL.