Global, regional, and national burden of age-related hearing loss from 1990 to 2019

The global distribution and temporal trend of age-related hearing loss (ARHL) are unknown, and we aimed to investigate magnitudes and temporal trends of ARHL burden and its influencing factors at the national, regional, and global levels. Based on the information of Global Burden of Disease Study 2019, we calculated the estimated annual percentage change to quantify the global, regional, and national temporal trends of age-standardized rates (ASRs) of ARHL by gender, age, and severity. The number of prevalent cases and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) of ARHL increased from 751.50 million and 22.01 million in 1990 to 1456.66 million and 40.24 million in 2019, respectively. Except for a few countries such as Niger and Burkina Faso, the age-standardized prevalence rate and age-standardized DALYs rate showed a downward trend in most countries and regions. Mild ARHL accounted for the largest proportion in all ARHL, and only mild ARHL showed an upward trend in ASRs. In most regions, the proportion of ARHL disease burden attributable to occupational noise showed a downward trend in the past 30 years. In 2019, ARHL disease burden attributable to occupational noise declined with the increase of socio-demographic index in countries. Although the ASR of ARHL in most parts of the world is declining, the absolute disease burden of ARHL is still heavy. Understanding the real-time disease burden of ARHL and its temporal trend is of great significance for formulating more effective preventive measures and reducing the ARHL burden.