Journal article
A hypothetical intervention on the use of hearing aids for the risk of dementia in people with hearing loss in UK Biobank
- Abstract:
- Observational studies have reported that hearing aid (HA) use is associated with a reduced risk of dementia diagnosis, suggesting a possible protective effect. However, extant observational studies do not explicitly model causal effects, while randomized controlled trials on the effect of HA on dementia exhibit short follow-up. Here we used self-report, hearing tests, and healthcare records in UK Biobank to design a hypothetical intervention for the effect of HA use on the risk of dementia diagnosis in people with incident hearing loss. HA users exhibited a higher risk of dementia diagnosis than nonusers (risk ratio: 1.43; 95% CI, 1.08-1.88). Associations between HA use and dementia diagnosis were robust across sensitivity analyses (risk ratio: 1.34-1.59), but adjustment for primary healthcare use (risk ratio: 0.77; 95% CI, 0.44-1.33) or primary and secondary care use (risk ratio: 0.68; 95% CI, 0.39-1.18) substantially decreased the observed effect. The decrease in effect estimates upon adjustment for primary (risk ratio: 1.30; 95% CI, 0.95-1.78), and primary and secondary healthcare use (1.30, 0.94-1.78) was smaller when participants with relatively early diagnoses of hearing loss were included in the sample compared to when they were not. While the findings are not conclusive, they suggest residual confounding by healthcare use and dating of hearing loss diagnosis in participants without primary care data in UK Biobank.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 922.3KB, Terms of use)
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(Supplementary materials, zip, 20.8MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1093/aje/kwae452
Authors
+ European Commission
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- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/00k4n6c32
- Funding agency for:
- Klee, M
- Leist, AK
- Grant:
- 803239
- Programme:
- Horizon 2020
+ Wellcome Trust
More from this funder
- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/029chgv08
- Funding agency for:
- Mur, J
- Grant:
- 108890/B/15/Z
+ European Research Council
More from this funder
- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/0472cxd90
- Funding agency for:
- Solomon, A
- Grant:
- 804371
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- Journal:
- American Journal of Epidemiology More from this journal
- Volume:
- 194
- Issue:
- 10
- Pages:
- 2844–2852
- Publication date:
- 2024-12-16
- Acceptance date:
- 2024-11-22
- DOI:
- EISSN:
-
1476-6256
- ISSN:
-
0002-9262
- Language:
-
English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
-
2071612
- Local pid:
-
pubs:2071612
- Deposit date:
-
2024-12-20
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Mur et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2024
- Rights statement:
- © The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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