OBJECTIVES: To characterize the prevalence, severity, and correlates of hearing loss and tinnitus in U.S. Veterans enrolled in the Million Veteran Program, and, secondarily, to contextualize audiometric patterns relative to an age-matched civilian cohort.
✦ The floor
Discussion
Signed responses from readers of the wire.
The findings reinforce that hearing loss and tinnitus are highly prevalent in veteran populations, but clinicians should await full publication details before changing screening or management protocols based on this study alone.
A national cohort of this scale offers the statistical power to identify previously underdetected risk factors for hearing loss and tinnitus in veterans, potentially informing VA policy and broader public-health screening strategies.
- 01Uses the Million Veteran Program (MVP) cohort — one of the largest biobank datasets in the U.S.
- 02Characterizes prevalence, severity, and correlates of both hearing loss and tinnitus.
- 03Veteran populations face elevated noise exposure and ototoxic medication (hearing-damaging drug) use.
- 04Findings could inform VA audiology screening and intervention programs.
- 05Published in Ear and Hearing (DOI: 10.1097/AUD.0000000000001873).
The Million Veteran Program cohort can be used to characterize national prevalence and severity of hearing loss and tinnitus in U.S. veterans.
studysupported- PMID
- 42507681
- DOI
- 10.1097/AUD.0000000000001873.
- Journal
- Ear and Hearing
- Publication type
- research_article
- Evidence level
- 2b
- Population
- U.S. military veterans enrolled in the Million Veteran Program
- Intervention
- Epidemiological characterization of hearing loss and tinnitus prevalence, severity, and correlates
Primary outcomes
Prevalence of hearing loss; Prevalence of tinnitus; Correlates/risk factors associated with hearing loss and tinnitus