Prevalence of sensorineural hearing loss in Asian children

The study was designed to assess whether Asian children were at an increased risk of having sensorineural hearing loss. All the Asian children aged between 5 and 16 years were identified from class lists to form the study group, and an equal number of non-Asian children, controlling for age and sex, were randomly selected from the Child Health records to form the control group. With parent's consent, a four frequency (1, 2, 4 and 8 kHz) pure tone screening test was carried out on the children in both groups. There was a second screen for the failures and a diagnostic assessment for those failing again. Prevalence rate was calculated for two categories of hearing impairment (mild-to-profound and moderate-to-profound) and for the better and worse ear, resulting in four prevalence estimates for each group. The absolute prevalence rates for the Asian children were all consistently higher (ranging from 5.09 to 9.61 per 1000) than the non-Asian children (ranging from 1.4 to 3.51 per 1000) and the relative risk measure showed the Asian group to be 2.42-3.61 times at greater risk of having a hearing loss. The results of this study were compared with other studies and inconsistencies were discussed with reference to methodological differences and deficiencies. It was concluded that Asian children were at an increased risk of sensorineural hearing loss.