Fact · Accessibility and health
15percent
About 15 percent of American adults, or 37.5 million people aged 18 and over, report some trouble hearing.
Checked against its source on October 16, 2026
In the source's own words
“Approximately 15% of American adults (37.5 million) ages 18 and over report some trouble hearing.”
Quick Statistics About Hearing, Balance, & Dizziness, National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, National Institutes of Health, n.d., Hearing section.
Open the original- What it measures
- The figure comes from a survey question about trouble hearing, so it counts people who describe difficulty hearing, not only those with a clinical diagnosis.
- What it does not show
- Self-reported. It is a different measure from clinical hearing loss, which NIDCD reports separately.