Assessment and Modeling of the Influence of Age, Gender, and Family History of Hearing Problems on the Probability of Suffering Hearing Loss in the Working Population

Abstract

Hearing loss affects hundreds of millions of people all over the world, leading to several types of disabilities, ranging from purely physical to psychological and/or social aspects. A proper analysis to ascertain the main risk factors is essential in order to diagnose early and treat adequately. An exploratory analysis based on a heterogeneous sample of 1418 workers is presented in order to identify the main trigger factors for hearing loss. On the one hand, we recorded several medical and environmental parameters, and on the other, we created a model based on Bayesian networks in order to be able to infer the probability of hearing loss considering different scenarios. This paper focuses on three parameters: gender, age, and a family history of hearing problems. The results obtained allow us to infer or predict the best or worst auditory level for an individual under several different scenarios. The least relevant factor is the existence of a family history of deafness, followed by the gender factor, which slopes considerably toward better hearing for females, and most prominent of all, the age factor, given the large differences identified between the various age groups when the gender and family history of deafness variables remain constant.