Cohort study finds clinical and self-reported hearing loss strongly increase dementia risk in adults, highlighting sensory health as a key factor in cognitive decline.
This study evaluated hearing loss (HL) as a factor associated with dementia in a large population-based cohort. We analyzed 16,270 participants from the All of Us database, including 1224 (7.5%) with dementia, matched to controls by U.S. census demographics. Self-reported severe hearing difficulty showed the strongest association with dementia (OR 6.76), followed by sensorineural HL (SNHL) (OR 3.90), smoking (OR 1.71), parental HL (OR 1.48), and hypertension (OR 1.48), all p < 0.001. Effect sizes were largest for self-reported severe hearing difficulty (1.91) and SNHL (1.36). These findings indicate that self-reported severe hearing difficulty and SNHL are strongly associated with dementia.
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Dichter et al. (2026) studied this question.
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