The prevalence of handicapping hearing loss in a middle-aged population in Finland.

Screening audiometry was performed during the years 1973-1978 in a total of 11,744 subjects aged 35-50 years. The incidence of those persons having a mean hearing threshold of 30 dB or more at 0.5-2 kHz or of 50 dB or more at 2 kHz varied from 0.3% to 2.7% in males of different age subgroups. The results for females were about two-thirds of those for males. Overall, 1.5% of the Finnish population aged 35-54 years were found to be candidates for hearing rehabilitation.