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Interaction between Noise Exposure and Phenotypic Age Acceleration in Hearing Loss: An NHANES Study

Junjian Dai ORCID
Department of Neurosurgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical University, Kunming 650000, China
Siqi Xiong ORCID
The School of Rehabilitation Science, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon 999077, China
Congcong Wu ORCID
Department of Neurosurgery, The First People's Hospital of Yunnan Province, Kunming 650000, China
Changsen Zhu ORCID
Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, The First People's Hospital of Yunnan Province, Kunming 650000, China
Xiao Yu ORCID
Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Shanghai Sixth People's Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200030, China
Tian Lv ORCID
Department of Neurology, Zhuji Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Zhuji 311800, China
Received: 25 May 2026; Revised: 5 June 2026; Accepted: 3 July 2026; Published: 9 July 2026

Abstract

Hearing loss is a growing public health burden, and aging and occupational noise exposure are two major contributors. This cross-sectional study examined whether phenotypic age acceleration interacts with occupational noise exposure in relation to hearing loss. We included 2,014 adults from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2005–2010, representing 16,596,487 non-institutionalized U.S. adults after survey weighting. Hearing loss was defined as concordant objective audiometric impairment and self-reported hearing difficulty. Phenotypic age acceleration was derived from the residual of phenotypic age regressed on chronological age. After adjustment for sex, race, body mass index, diabetes, and hypertension, occupational noise exposure was associated with higher odds of hearing loss (OR = 2.35, 95% CI: 1.56–3.43; p < 0.001), as was accelerated phenotypic aging (OR = 2.05, 95% CI: 1.53–2.67; p < 0.001). These associations remained after additional adjustment for chronological age. In the weighted joint analysis, participants with both occupational noise exposure and accelerated phenotypic aging had the highest odds of hearing loss (OR = 5.51, 95% CI: 3.31–9.28). In an unweighted sensitivity analysis, the joint-exposure OR was 12.98 (95% CI: 6.10–27.60), with positive additive interaction indices (RERI = 7.79, AP = 0.60, SI = 2.90). Mediation analysis showed no significant indirect effect through phenotypic age acceleration (mediation proportion = 0.34%; p = 0.19). These findings suggest that occupational noise exposure and accelerated biological aging may jointly increase hearing loss risk.

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