Childhood infections, but not early life growth, influence hearing in the Newcastle thousand families birth cohort at age 14 years

BMC Ear, Nose and Throat Disorders

Mark S Pearce³  Adrian Rees¹  Raphael Nedellec²  Kay D Mann³  Fiona Pearson³ 

[1] Institute of Neuroscience, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK;Ecole Nationale de la Statistique et de l’Analyse de l’Information, Rennes, France;Institute of Health & Society, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

关键词: Epidemiology;    Aetiology;    Risk factors;    Fetal growth;    Childhood hearing;   

Others  :  862693
DOI  :  10.1186/1472-6815-13-9

 received in 2013-03-12, accepted in 2013-07-26,  发布年份 2013

【 摘 要 】

Background

While current research priorities include investigations of age-related hearing loss, there are concerns regarding effects on childhood hearing, for example through increased personal headphone use. By utilising historical data, it is possible to assess what factors may have increased hearing problems in children in the past, and this may be used to inform current public health policies to protect children against hearing loss and in turn reduce the long-term burden on individuals and services that may possible evolve. The aim of this study was to investigate which factors in early life significantly impacted on hearing level in childhood using existing data from the Newcastle Thousand Families Study, a 1947 birth cohort.

Methods

Data on early life factors, including growth, socio-economic status and illness, and hearing at age 14 years were collated for a representative subset of individuals from the cohort (n = 147). Factors were assessed using linear regression analysis to identify associations with hearing thresholds.

Results

Males were found to have lower hearing thresholds at 250 Hz, 500 Hz and 1 kHz. Main analyses showed no associations between hearing thresholds and early life growth or socio-economic indicators. An increasing number of ear infections from birth to age 13 years was associated with hearing thresholds at 250Hz (p = 0.04) and 500Hz (p = 0.03), which remained true for females (p = 0.050), but not males (p = 0.213) in sex-specific analysis. Scarlet fever and bronchitis were associated with hearing thresholds at 8 kHz. After adjustment for all significant predictors at each frequency, results remained unchanged.

Conclusions

We found no associations between childhood hearing thresholds and early life growth and socio-economic status. Consistent with other studies, we found associations between childhood infections and hearing thresholds. Current public health strategies aimed at reducing childhood infections may also have a beneficial effect upon childhood hearing.

【 授权许可】

   
2013 Pearson et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

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