Hearing loss and employment: a systematic review of the association between hearing loss and employment among adults.

BACKGROUND: Hearing loss affects over 1.3 billion individuals worldwide, with the greatest burden among adults. Little is known regarding the association between adult-onset hearing loss and employment. METHODS: Seven databases (PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, ABI/Inform Collection, Business Source Ultimate, Web of Science and Scopus) were searched through to October 2018. The key word terms used related to hearing loss and employment, excluding paediatric or congenital hearing loss and deaf or culturally deaf populations. RESULTS: The initial search resulted in 13 144 articles. A total of 7494 articles underwent title and abstract screening, and 243 underwent full-text review. Twenty-five articles met the inclusion criteria. Studies were set in 10 predominantly high-income countries. Seven of the 25 studies analysed regionally or nationally representative datasets and controlled for key variables. Six of these seven studies reported associations between hearing loss and employment. CONCLUSION: The highest quality studies currently available indicate that adult-onset hearing loss is associated with unemployment. However, considerable heterogeneity exists, and more rigorous studies that include low- and middle-income countries are needed.

The AB-York crescent of sound: an apparatus for assessing spatial-listening skills in children and adults.

Modern health services need efficient tools for measuring outcomes from interventions, that is, tools of proven efficacy which make minimal demands on the time of clinicians in learning to administer tests and in interpreting results. This paper describes an apparatus designed to meet those requirements. The apparatus administers performance tests of spatial listening for children and adults with unilateral and bilateral cochlear implants. The apparatus was designed with guidance from clinicians. It possesses three key attributes: it is simple to use; the results of tests are scored automatically and are compared with reference data; the apparatus generates comprehensive personalized reports for individual participants that can be included in clinical notes. This paper describes the apparatus and reports results of a test measuring spatial release from masking of speech which illustrates the compatibility between the new apparatus and an older apparatus with which the reference data were gathered.