Incidence of Permanent Childhood Hearing Impairment
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Incidence of Permanent Childhood Hearing Impairment (PCHI) in the First Year of Life in the Bristol Area: Ethnicity and Socioeconomic Status.
IRAS ID
156067
Contact name
Victoria Kemp
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Aston University
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 6 months, 30 days
Research summary
To investigate how many children in Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire born between 2006 and 2011 were born with a permanent hearing impairment and to (1) determine whether there is a difference in the proportion of babies diagnosed who are of different ethnicity, and (2) explore possible associations between permanent childhood hearing impairment and socioeconomic status.
Babies born within this timeframe and diagnosed with a permanent hearing impairment will be identifiable through eScreener Plus (eSP), an online database that holds information relating to a child’s newborn hearing screen, as well as the child’s ethnicity and address at the time of birth. The online database will be searched to identify those children with a permanent hearing impairment and these records will be cross-referenced with local Audiology records to ensure correct and reliable data.
eSP will be used to:
→ Identify all the children born in the Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire area within this time frame
→ Identify children who have been diagnosed with a permanent childhood hearing impairment before the age of one year
→ Obtain ethnicity information of the above children, in order to calculate the incidence of permanent hearing impairment in children of Asian ethnicity and of ethnic minorities compared to the incidence of permanent hearing impairment in children of Caucasian ethnicity
→ Obtain socioeconomic information of the above children, in order to categorise socioeconomic status to determine whether the incidence of permanent childhood hearing impairment is higher in areas of poorer socioeconomic status (ie are ‘poorer’ children more likely to have a permanent childhood hearing impairment than ‘richer’ children).REC name
South West - Frenchay Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
14/SW/1176
Date of REC Opinion
4 Feb 2015
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion