Hearing Loss and Dementia Risk in Older Adults from the ARIC Neurocognitive Study

Supplementary file 1_Hearing loss and incident dementia over 8 years in Black and White older adults: the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Neurocognitive Study.docx contains data from a study investigating racial disparities in the effects of audiometric hearing loss on dementia and mortality. The dataset likely includes adjudicated dementia outcomes, audiometric hearing loss categories, and demographic variables for 3,602 older adults aged 68–89 years, 22% of whom were self-identified Black race. The research was authored by Jennifer A. Deal and published on figshare under a CC-BY-4.0 license.

Use Cases

• Analyze associations between audiometric hearing loss categories and dementia risk based on adjudicated all-cause dementia outcomes.
• Investigate racial disparities in mortality risk associated with hearing loss based on hazard ratios stratified by race.
• Model the interaction between hearing loss and race on health outcomes using Cox proportional hazards models.
• Validate clinical cutpoints for hearing loss categorization using the better-ear averaged pure-tone threshold data.
• Assess the impact of including minoritized populations in health research based on the study's participant composition.

Strengths

• Dataset includes 3,602 participants, providing a substantial sample size for analysis.
• 22% of participants are self-identified Black race, enabling analysis of racial disparities.
• Dementia outcomes were adjudicated using neurocognitive test data, proxy reports, and surveillance of hospital records and death certificates.
• Audiometric hearing loss was defined using clinical cutpoints for the better-ear averaged pure-tone threshold.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• The dataset is 23.7 KB, indicating a very limited scope, likely containing summary or processed results rather than raw data.

Provenance

Source

figshare

Collection Method

Data likely gathered from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Neurocognitive Study.

Time Range

Study period likely spans 8 years, as indicated by the title.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-09 05:20:06; freshness should be verified.

Geography

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