Table 1 Demographic Characteristics of Participants Aged 60 Years or Older With Audiometric Testing. The degree of hearing loss was classified based on the pure tone average thresholds (PTA) of the better and worse ear
|  | Community A (n = 1261) | Community B (n = 532) | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Better-hearing ear | Worse-hearing ear | Better-hearing ear | Worse-hearing ear | |||||
NH (n = 18) | HL (n = 1243) | NH (n = 9) | HL (n = 1252) | NH (n = 84) | HL (n = 448) | NH (n = 33) | HL (n = 499) | |
Sex | ||||||||
 Male | 6 (33.3%) | 540 (43.4%) | 5 (55.6%) | 541 (43.2%) | 30 (35.7%) | 294 (34.4%) | 8 (24.2%) | 176 (35.3%) |
 Female | 12 (66.7%) | 703 (56.6%) | 4 (44.4%) | 711 (56.8%) | 54 (64.3%) | 154 (65.6%) | 25 (75.8%) | 323 (64.7%) |
Age group | ||||||||
 60–69 | 8 (44.4%) | 526 (42.3%) | 4 (44.4%) | 530 42.0%) | 51 (60.7%) | 118 (26.2%) | 25 (75.8%) | 144 (28.9%) |
 70–79 | 9 (50%) | 609 (49%) | 4 (44.4%) | 614 (49.3%) | 22 (26.2%) | 127 (28.3%) | 6 (18.2%) | 143 (28.7%) |
 ≥ 80 | 1 (5.6%) | 108 (8.8%) | 1 (11.2%) | 108 (8.7%) | 11 (13.1%) | 203 (45.4%) | 2 (6.0%) | 212 (42.4%) |
Hearing symmetry | ||||||||
 Symmetrical PTA | 18 (100%) | 1197 (96.3%) | 9 (100%) | 1206 (96.3%) | 79 (94%) | 402 (89.7%) | 33 (100%) | 447 (89.6%) |
 Asymmetrical PTA | 0 | 46 (3.7%) | 0 | 46 (3.7%) | 5 (6%) | 46 (10.3%) | 0 | 52 (10.4%) |
Hearing severity based on the WHO standard | ||||||||
 Mild (PTA 26~40 dB HL) |  | 598 (47.4%) |  | 360 (28.8%) |  | 202 (38%) |  | 169 (33.9%) |
 Moderate (PTA 41~70 dB HL) |  | 576 (45.7%) |  | 725 (57.9%) |  | 176 (33.1%) |  | 191 (38.3%) |
 Severe (PTA 71~90 dB HL) |  | 61 (4.8%) |  | 135 (10.8%) |  | 60 (11.3%) |  | 90 (18.0%) |
 Profound (PTA > 90 dB HL) |  | 8 (0.6%) |  | 32 (2.5%) |  | 10 (1.9%) |  | 49 (9.8%) |