Association between Socioeconomic Factors and Hearing Loss in Working Population

Abstract

Background: This study aimed to investigate the association between demographic, social, and economic factors of employees and hearing loss. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, the required data were extracted from the periodic medical examination of 987 workers in an automotive industry. Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney tests were used to study the associations. The data were analyzed in the SPSS software. Results: In this study, most of the subjects were in the age group of 30-49 years and also had less than 10 years of working experience. In terms of education level, most of them had a diploma. The relationship between work experience and hearing loss indicated profound hearing loss among a workers with 10 to 20 years of work experience. According to age, the subjects over the age of 55 years had the highest prevalence of hearing loss (p = 0.04). Conclusion: Age and work experience, education, income, and type of job are among the factors that could predict the at risk population for hearing loss.

Keywords

• hearing loss
• socioeconomic status
• automotive industry
• occupational health