The association between residential greenness and hearing impairment

Growing evidence shows that residential greenness is beneficial for various health outcomes, but the link between residential greenness and hearing impairment has not been explored. We aimed to explore the link between residential greenness and hearing impairment using baseline data from the UK Biobank. We used data from 107,516 participants between the ages of 40 and 69 years in the UK Biobank from 2006 to 2010. The normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) was used to measure the residential greenness. We defined hearing impairment using the digital triplet test. Logistic regression models were conducted to examine the association of residential greenness with hearing impairment. Each interquartile increment in NDVI was associated with 19% lower odds of hearing impairment (odds ratio, OR 0.81; 95% confidence interval, 95% CI 0.79-0.83). Compared with participants in the first NDVI quartile, those in the second, third, and fourth NDVI quartiles had lower odds of hearing impairment (OR 0.69, 95% CI 0.65-0.73 for the second; OR 0.76, 95% CI 0.72-0.81 for the third; OR 0.68, 95% CI 0.65-0.72 for the fourth). Age and Townsend deprivation index showed moderating effects on this association. Our findings showed a negative association between residential greenness and hearing impairment, which might provide potential value for developing cost-effective greenness design and configuration interventions to reduce the risk of hearing impairment.