Hearing threshold comparisons between 2001-02 NHANES and 2003-05 fort bliss U.S. army service components

Abstract

This study compares population mean hearing threshold levels in decibels (dB) at 4 kHz among the 2001-02 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) (n = 1,872) and the 2003-05 Fort Bliss Army Active Duty (AD) (n = 9,096), National Guard (NG) (n = 3,842), and Reserve Components (RC) (n = 2,025) and by gender. Comparisons between male populations show that mean hearing thresholds are not significantly different (p<0.05) between U.S. Army Active Duty males and NHANES males, which differ from a 1984 U.S. Army Active Duty/1971-74 NHANES study showing significantly higher hearing thresholds for the Army Active Duty population. In addition, this study shows that Active Duty males have significantly lower hearing thresholds than National Guard males at ages <40 years old. Female groups generally have significantly lower hearing thresholds than male groups at all ages, but there are not significant differences between female military and civilian populations.