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FAQ: Deaf Population of Individual States, Territories, & Localities
Holt and Hotto, in Demographic aspects of hearing impairment: questions and answers, say that demographic statistics for individual U.S. states and localities are not available, due to deficiencies in current demographic sampling surveys.
However, the Bureau of the Census has made its own estimates for both deaf and hard of hearing populations in each of the 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. These estimates shown below have been extracted from the Bureau's many charts posted on the World Wide Web, and compiled here. Note: When using this data, it must be remembered that it is not based on any actual counting of deaf people, and could be different from reality.
On the local (county or municipal) level, Census Bureau figures are not available, and almost certainly nonexistent. Some estimates or "guesstimates" may (or may not) be available from the various state associations of the deaf and/or the state office on deafness, if the state has one. The American annals of the deaf annual directory issue (no.2 of each year) lists the addresses of each state association of the deaf under "Organizations and Associations--National Association of the Deaf". In the same AAD issue, under "Regional and Local Programs", are listed various agencies, some of which may be able to provide estimates for their areas.
The following figures are model-based estimates based on U.S. Census Bureau data collected 1994-1995, for "non-institutionalized persons 16 and over" only (i.e., children under 16 are not counted). This is the latest information available as of June 2004. By that date, the disability statistics from the 2000 Census still had not yet been analyzed and published to the necessary degree of detail.
Note that the U.S. Census Bureau identifies two levels of hearing impairment: "have difficulty hearing normal conversation" (what most people would call "hard of hearing") and "unable to hear normal conversation" (what most people would call "deaf"). Estimated numbers were rounded off to the nearest thousand.
| Have difficulty hearing normal conversation | Unable to hear normal conversation | |||
| Alabama | 200,965 | 6.63% | 16,950 | 0.56% |
| Alaska | 14,642 | 4.02% | 1235 | 0.34% |
| Arizona | 154,612 | 5.68% | 13,040 | 0.48% |
| Arkansas | 129,687 | 7.39% | 10,938 | 0.62% |
| California | 1,078,325 | 4.87% | 90,948 | 0.41% |
| Colorado | 121,141 | 4.95% | 10,217 | 0.42% |
| Connecticut | 141,628 | 5.54% | 11,945 | 0.47% |
| Delaware | 30,603 | 6.06% | 2581 | 0.51% |
| District of Columbia | 23,253 | 4.81% | 1961 | 0.41% |
| Florida | 746,601 | 7.39% | 62,970 | 0.62% |
| Georgia | 274,992 | 5.75% | 23,193 | 0.49% |
| Hawaii | 44,098 | 5.56% | 3719 | 0.47% |
| Idaho | 42,813 | 5.99% | 3611 | 0.47% |
| Illinois | 472,930 | 5.49% | 39,888 | 0.46% |
| Indiana | 240,807 | 5.79% | 20,310 | 0.49% |
| Iowa | 133,119 | 6.39% | 11,227 | 0.54% |
| Kansas | 108,296 | 5.97% | 9134 | 0.50% |
| Kentucky | 193,456 | 7.00% | 16,316 | 0.59% |
| Louisiana | 184,847 | 6.12% | 15,590 | 0.52% |
| Maine | 57,026 | 6.15% | 4810 | 0.52% |
| Maryland | 202,613 | 5.58% | 17,089 | 0.47% |
| Massachusetts | 263,867 | 5.60% | 22,255 | 0.47% |
| Michigan | 393,577 | 5.64% | 33,195 | 0.48% |
| Minnesota | 185,980 | 5.71% | 15,686 | 0.48% |
| Mississippi | 122,094 | 6.55% | 19,907 | 0.52% |
| Missouri | 236,023 | 6.14% | 19,907 | 0.52% |
| Montana | 36,366 | 6.23% | 3067 | 0.53% |
| Nebraska | 70,555 | 6.11% | 5951 | 0.52% |
| Nevada | 49,980 | 5.48% | 4215 | 0.46% |
| New Hampshire | 45,161 | 5.36% | 3809 | 0.45% |
| New Jersey | 329,877 | 5.48% | 27,822 | 0.46% |
| New Mexico | 53,876 | 4.97% | 4544 | 0.42% |
| New York | 759,145 | 5.46% | 64,028 | 0.46% |
| North Carolina | 313,978 | 6.27% | 26,481 | 0.53% |
| North Dakota | 28,923 | 6.28% | 2439 | 0.53% |
| Ohio | 480,444 | 5.87% | 40,521 | 0.50% |
| Oklahoma | 162,125 | 6.99% | 13,674 | 0.59% |
| Oregon | 132,574 | 6.15% | 11,181 | 0.52% |
| Pennsylvania | 575,521 | 6.25% | 48,540 | 0.53% |
| Rhode Island | 47,142 | 6.05% | 3976 | 0.51% |
| South Carolina | 155,486 | 6.07% | 13,114 | 0.51% |
| South Dakota | 32,138 | 6.45% | 2711 | 0.54% |
| Tennessee | 246,900 | 6.66% | 20,824 | 0.56% |
| Texas | 670,925 | 5.45% | 56,587 | 0.46% |
| Utah | 57,453 | 5.06% | 4846 | 0.43% |
| Vermont | 23,625 | 5.52% | 1993 | 0.47% |
| Virginia | 265,180 | 5.77% | 22,366 | 0.49% |
| Washington | 203,881 | 5.63% | 17,196 | 0.47% |
| West Virginia | 106,508 | 7.69% | 8983 | 0.50% |
| Wisconsin | 216,216 | 5.91% | 18,236 | 0.50% |
| Wyoming | 17,647 | 5.46% | 1488 | 0.46% |
Puerto Rico: The U.S. Census Bureau has not provided statistics for Puerto Rico or any of the other U.S. territories. In 1944, the first and only census of the Puerto Rico deaf population identified 1965 "partially deaf" and 1725 "totally deaf" and "deaf-mute" individuals, or a total of 3,690. Since then, various rehabilitation and educational agencies and organizations have estimated Puerto Rico's deaf population at anywhere from 8000 to 40,000 individuals. There are indications that even the larger of these two figures is possibly an underestimate.
Source: Extracted from http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/disable.html in 1999; this table apparently no longer available online in 2004.
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Prepared by Tom HarringtonReference and Instruction Librarian
July, 2004
