Hearing Loss and Sociodemographic Barriers to Health Care Access Using the All of Us Research Program

Objective To explore how gender and low‐income status independently influence general health care access in patients with hearing loss. Study Design Cross‐sectional study. Setting National database. Methods Patients with a diagnosis of sensorineural hearing loss from the National Institutes of Health All of Us database were included. Data entered from May 2018 to November 2022 was analyzed. Patient demographics such as age, gender, educational level, and insurance status were assessed. Multivariate logistic regressions were performed for statistical evaluation. Results A subset of 8875 patients (48.3% male, mean age 69) were evaluated. After multivariate analysis, female participants were more likely than male participants to report difficulty affording prescribed medications (odds ratio [OR]: 1.7, p