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. 2025 Mar 1;151(3):202-210.
doi: 10.1001/jamaoto.2024.4488.

Residential Differences and Depression Among Older Adults With Dual Sensory Loss

Ethan B Wang  1 , Emmanuel E Garcia Morales  1 , Alden L Gross  2 , Frank R Lin  1   2   3 , Nicholas S Reed  1   2   3 , Jennifer A Deal  1   2   3
Affiliations

Residential Differences and Depression Among Older Adults With Dual Sensory Loss

Ethan B Wang et al. JAMA Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. .

Abstract

Importance: Investigating rural-urban and regional differences in the association between dual sensory loss (concurrent hearing and vision loss) and depression may highlight gaps in sensory loss research and health care services, and by socioeconomic status. Whether urbanicity and region may modify associations between sensory loss and depression is unknown.

Objective: To describe the rural-urban and regional differences in the association of dual sensory loss with depression among older adults.

Design, setting, and participants: This cross-sectional study used data from wave 1 (April 2017-December 2019) of the population-based Longitudinal Aging Study in India (LASI). Participants were recruited from 35 states and union territories in India. LASI incorporated a multistage stratified area probability cluster sampling design to recruit participants 45 years and older and their spouses; 31 447 eligible participants 60 years of age or older were interviewed. Data analyses were conducted from May 17, 2022, to November 11, 2023.

Exposures: Sensory loss (no sensory loss, hearing loss only, vision loss only, and dual sensory loss) was determined by respondents' self-reported perceived difficulty regarding hearing and vision function.

Main outcomes and measures: The Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI-SF) scale was used to identify major episodic depression. Logistic regression was used to estimate the odds ratios (ORs) and 95% CIs of depression comparing participants with vs without sensory loss, adjusting for demographic and clinical covariates. Rural-urban and regional differences were assessed by including interaction terms between these variables and sensory loss.

Results: The study analysis included 27 927 participants (mean [SD] age, 68.0 [7.2] years; 14 477 [51%] females and 13 450 [49%] males). The fully adjusted models showed that the odds of depression with dual sensory loss (vs no loss) was higher in urban (OR, 3.16; 95% CI, 2.00-4.99) vs rural (OR, 1.73; 95% CI, 1.31-2.29) residents and among residents in the West (OR, 5.10; 95% CI, 1.74-14.97) vs North (OR, 1.38; 95% CI, 0.81-2.35) regions.

Conclusions and relevance: These findings indicate that sensory loss is associated with depression in older adults, with differences by urbanicity and region. Adults with sensory loss across multiple systems may be an important group to target for intervention.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest Disclosures: Dr Wang reported receiving research funding by Woodrow Wilson Undergraduate Research Fellowship outside the submitted work. Dr Reed reported serving on the scientific advisory board (nonfinancial) for Shoebox and Good Machine Studio outside the submitted work. . Dr Lin reported being a consultant to Frequency Therapeutics, receiving speaker honoraria from Caption Call, being the director of a research center funded in part by a philanthropic gift from Cochlear Ltd to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health outside the submitted work. Dr Deal is specialty chief editor for the Aging and Life-Course Epidemiology Section at Frontiers in Epidemiology. No other disclosures were reported.

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