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Sex differences in vision and hearing impairments across age and European regions

Findings from SHARE

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Summary

Aim

Although sensory impairments are common conditions among older people, research often fails to consider the role of sex. We examined sex differences in vision impairment and hearing impairment across age and European regions.

Methods

We conducted a cross-sectional study based on a pooled sample of 65,656 females and 54,881 males aged 50 years and older participating in the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) from 2004–2020. Logistic regression models with robust standard errors providing odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were used to examine associations.

Results

European females had generally higher odds of vision impairment (OR 1.16, 95% CI 1.12–1.21) but lower odds of hearing impairment than European males (OR 0.70, 95% CI 0.67–0.73). The female disadvantage in vision increased with advancing age, whereas the female advantage in hearing decreased. No overall sex difference in vision was found in northern Europe, but females had more vision impairments than males in southern (OR 1.23, 95% CI 1.14–1.32), western (OR 1.14, 95% CI 1.08–1.21) and eastern (OR 1.10, 95% CI 1.02–1.20) Europe. Females were healthier than males in terms of hearing in all regions, with the largest female advantage in northern Europe (OR 0.58, 95% CI 0.53–0.64).

Conclusion

Our findings demonstrate an overall consistent pattern of sex differences in sensory impairments across Europe showing an increasing female disadvantage in vision and a decreasing female advantage in hearing with advancing age.

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Acknowledgements

This paper uses data from SHARE Waves 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, and 8 (https://doi.org/10.6103/SHARE.w1.800, https://doi.org/10.6103/SHARE.w2.800, https://doi.org/10.6103/SHARE.w4.800, https://doi.org/10.6103/SHARE.w5.800, https://doi.org/10.6103/SHARE.w6.800, https://doi.org/10.6103/SHARE.w8.800), see Börsch-Supan et al. (2013) for methodological details [24]. The SHARE data collection has been funded by the European Commission, DG RTD through FP5 (QLK6-CT-2001-00360), FP6 (SHARE-I3: RII-CT-2006-062193, COMPARE: CIT5-CT-2005-028857, SHARELIFE: CIT4-CT-2006-028812), FP7 (SHARE-PREP: GA N°211909, SHARE-LEAP: GA N°227822, SHARE M4: GA N°261982, DASISH: GA N°283646) and Horizon 2020 (SHARE-DEV3: GA N°676536, SHARE-COHESION: GA N°870628, SERISS: GA N°654221, SSHOC: GA N°823782, SHARE-COVID19: GA N°101015924) and by DG Employment, Social Affairs & Inclusion through VS 2015/0195, VS 2016/0135, VS 2018/0285, VS 2019/0332, and VS 2020/0313. Additional funding from the German Ministry of Education and Research, the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science, the U.S. National Institute on Aging (U01_AG09740-13S2, P01_AG005842, P01_AG08291, P30_AG12815, R21_AG025169, Y1-AG-4553-01, IAG_BSR06-11, OGHA_04-064, HHSN271201300071C, RAG052527A) and from various national funding sources is gratefully acknowledged (see www.share-project.org).

Funding

This study was supported by research Grants from Demography of Sex Differences in Health and Survival P01 AG031719.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Unit for Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Biodemography, Department of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark, J. B. Winsløws Vej 9B, 5000, Odense C, Denmark

    Rikke Syrak Hansen MScPH, Lasse Lybecker Scheel-Hincke MScPH, Bernard Jeune PhD & Linda Juel Ahrenfeldt PhD

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  1. Rikke Syrak Hansen MScPH
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Contributions

RSH: writing—original draft. LLSH: formal analysis, methodology. BJ: supervision. LJA: conceptualization, formal analysis, investigation, methodology, project administration, visualization, writing—original draft, editing and revisions.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Linda Juel Ahrenfeldt PhD.

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Conflict of interest

R.S. Hansen, L.L. Scheel-Hincke, B. Jeune and L.J. Ahrenfeldt declare that they have no competing interests.

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Data availability

SHARE data is free of charge for scientific use globally http://www.share-project.org/data-access.html.

Supplementary Information

508_2023_2223_MOESM1_ESM.docx

Figure series from the case studies containing number of participants by wave and countries, and all estimates corresponding to Fig. 1 and 2 including results from sensitivity analyses

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Hansen, R.S., Scheel-Hincke, L.L., Jeune, B. et al. Sex differences in vision and hearing impairments across age and European regions. Wien Klin Wochenschr 136, 55–63 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00508-023-02223-2

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