According to the British Academy of Audiology, hearing loss (HL) is the second most common disability in the UK, affecting one in six adults. HL majorly impacts quality of life, especially in relation to communication and social interaction. Many of those with HL develop loneliness, which can drive an increased risk of mental health conditions such as depression and dementia. Though HL’s impact on loneliness has been established, the impact loneliness has on HL risk is unclear. This is significant as loneliness is a risk factor for other conditions and lifestyle factors associated with HL risk such as hypertension and smoking. Additionally, loneliness has been shown to drive inflammation, which may impact auditory function. In research published in May 2025 in Health Data Science, Yunlong Song and colleagues used UK Biobank data to find that those who described themselves as lonely had a 24% higher risk of HL compared to non-lonely individuals, after adjusting for potential confounders. To observe the effects of loneliness and HL risk, this study collected baseline data of participants from the UK Biobank, a large prospective population-based cohort study that recruited over 500,000 participants aged 40-69 years from 2006-2010 in England, Scotland, and Wales. Loneliness was measured based on answers to the question: ‘Do you often feel lonely?’, whereby ‘no’ answers were defined as non-lonely and ‘yes’ answers were defined as lonely. HL diagnosis was obtained from hospital inpatient records and was defined using the International Classification of Diseases 10th revision codes. When an HL subtype was specified, incident cases of HL were also classified as conductive, sensorineural, and mixed HL. Participants were followed up either until HL diagnosis, death, or the censoring date (30 September 2021 for England data, 28 February 2018 for Wales data, and 31 July 2021 for Scotland data). In total, 490,865 participants were included in the study, 90,893 of whom reported feeling lonely at baseline. Lonely participants were at a higher risk of HL, being 36% more likely to develop HL after adjusting for age and sex. This decreased to an increased risk of 24% after adjusting for all covariates. Regarding subtypes, only sensorineural HL risk was impacted by loneliness, with risk of sensorineural HL increasing by 23% in lonely individuals.
This study by Song and colleagues provides evidence of loneliness being a risk factor for HL, particularly for sensorineural HL. This gives incentive to initiate interventions designed to combat loneliness to reduce HL risk. Not only is reducing HL beneficial in improving quality of life, but it may reduce the incidence of associated conditions such as dementia and depression. Leading data and analytics company GlobalData epidemiologists forecast that in the UK, diagnosed prevalent cases of major depressive disorder, the severe form of depression, in men and women aged 18 years and older will increase from 1.75 million cases in 2025 to 1.77 million cases in 2029. Additionally, diagnosed prevalent cases of Alzheimer’s disease, the most common type of dementia, in men and women aged 55 years and older in the UK are forecast to increase from 242,000 cases in 2025 to 382,000 cases in 2033.
