Jessica West Receives NIH K01 Award to Study Hearing Loss Stigma and Healthcare Engagement

DUPRI Scholar Jessica West has received a K01 Research Career Development Award from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) to investigate how stigma surrounding hearing loss may prevent adults from seeking hearing healthcare and to identify strategies for reducing those barriers.

The award, “Improving Hearing Healthcare Outcomes by Addressing Hearing Loss Stigma: A Mixed Methods Approach” (K01DC023305-01A1), will support West’s development of a mixed-methods research program focused on hearing loss stigma and healthcare use. West is an Assistant Professor of Head and Neck Surgery & Communication Sciences at Duke.

More than 44 million U.S. adults experience hearing loss, which has been associated with social isolation, depression, cognitive decline, and other adverse health outcomes. Yet many people with hearing loss do not pursue hearing testing, diagnosis, or treatment. Although stigma surrounding hearing loss and hearing assistive devices has long been recognized as one potential barrier, relatively little research has focused on how that stigma operates or how it might be reduced.

West’s project will combine quantitative and qualitative approaches to better understand those experiences. First, she will use a web-based survey to measure hearing loss stigma among U.S. adults with hearing loss. She will then conduct in-depth interviews with a subset of participants to examine how experiences of stigma influence decisions about seeking and continuing hearing healthcare. Finally, West will work with a community co-design team to develop evidence-based strategies aimed at reducing stigma and improving engagement with hearing healthcare.

The award builds on a growing body of West’s research examining hearing loss as both a health and social issue among older adults. Earlier this year, West and colleagues found that faster epigenetic aging was associated with poorer hearing in older adults, providing evidence that biological aging processes may contribute to age-related hearing loss.

Other recent research has focused on the broader consequences of hearing loss. In a study of adults with heart failure, West and fellow DUPRI Scholars Hanzhang Xu and Matthew Dupre found that adults with unaided hearing loss experienced more hospitalizations than those with normal hearing, while hospitalization rates among hearing-aid users did not differ significantly from those with normal hearing.

Most recently, West, Hannah Crowder, Rong Jiang, and Dupre examined the relationship between hearing loss and anger using longitudinal data from more than 10,000 U.S. older adults. Published in the American Journal of Audiology, the study found that worse self-reported hearing was associated with higher levels of both internalized and externalized anger, further illustrating the ways hearing loss can affect psychological and social well-being.

Together, these studies and the new K01 project expand the focus beyond hearing impairment itself to examine how hearing loss intersects with biological aging, emotional well-being, healthcare use, and decisions about seeking treatment. By identifying the role stigma plays in those decisions, West’s new research aims to inform practical interventions that can improve access to and engagement with hearing healthcare.

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