A study has found that the prevalence of single-sided deafness (SSD) in the United States is estimated to be at around 0.1% to 0.15%. This means that around 345,000 adult Americans live with single-sided deafness.

Single-sided deafness is a severe type of unilateral hearing loss, where a person has normal hearing in one ear and a hearing loss in the other ear.

According to the study, the prevalence of unilateral hearing loss among U.S. adult is 5.2%, meaning that around 13 million Americans have a unilateral hearing loss.

More prevalent among older people and women

The study also found that single-sided deafness (SSD) was more prevalent in individuals 60 to 79 years of age with a prevalence of around 0.25%. A slightly higher prevalence of single-sided deafness was also noted among women compared to men.

About the study

Participants in the study were included from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) in the US. Around 15,000 people participated in the study. The aim of the study was to obtain a reliable estimate of single-sided deafness (SSD) prevalence in the adult U.S. population.

In the study, single-sided deafness (SSD) was defined as normal hearing (pure-tone average, PTA, of ≤25 dB) in one ear and severe or worse hearing (PTA > 70 dB) in the other.

It is estimated that more than 35 million people in the US live with a hearing loss.

The study, “Prevalence of Single-Sided Deafness in the United States”, was published in the journal The Laryngoscope.

Sources: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov and The Laryngoscope