Association between mobile phone use and hearing impairment: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Mohammad Hosein Taziki Balajelini; Masoud Mohammadi; Abdolhalim Rajabi

doi:10.1515/reveh-2021-0062

Article

Association between mobile phone use and hearing impairment: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Mohammad Hosein Taziki Balajelini , Masoud Mohammadi and Abdolhalim Rajabi

Published/Copyright: July 22, 2021

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From the journal Reviews on Environmental Health Volume 37 Issue 4

Abstract

Objectives

To investigate whether a possible association of mobile phone use with hearing impairment was conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Content

This is a systematic review and meta-analysis. A comprehensive literature search was carried out based on the Meta-analysis of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (MOOSE) methodology using PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, OVID, and Cochrane. The Robins-I tool was used for quality assessment and risk of bias. Two investigators independently reviewed all articles. Pooled effect size was calculated and meta-analysis was performed to compute an overall effect size.

Summary

Overall, five relevant studies (two cross-sectional and three cohort studies) with 92,978 participants were included in the analysis. The studies were stratified by design, there was no significant association between mobile phone use and hearing impairment in cross-sectional studies (OR=0.94, 95% CI=0.57–1.31) and cohort studies (OR=1.09, 95% CI=0.93–1.25). In addition, the effect estimates did not differ significantly between cross-sectional and cohort studies (Q=0.50, p=0.48). Overall, the pooled odds ratio (OR) of hearing impairment was 1.07 (95% CI: 0.94–1.20), which indicates no significant association between mobile phone use and hearing impairment.

Outlook

Our findings indicate no association between mobile phone use and hearing impairment. However, these findings must be interpreted with caution.

Keywords: audiology; cell phone; hearing impairment

Corresponding author: Abdolhalim Rajabi, Assistant Professor of Epidemiology, Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Faculty of Health, Health Management and Social Development Research Center, Golestan University of Medical Sciences, Gorgan, Iran, E-mail: rajabiepid@gmail.com

Research funding: None.
Author contributions: MM conducted the literature search, reviewed the articles, AR conducted the statistical analyses, and drafted the manuscript. MHT made substantial contributions to interpretation of data, and were involved in drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Competing interests: Authors state no conflict of interest.
Informed consent: Not applicable.
Ethical approval: This systematic review was ethical approved by Golestan University of Medical Sciences (Ethical code: IR.GOUMS.REC.1399.112).
Availability of data and materials: The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Supplementary Material

The online version of this article offers supplementary material (https://doi.org/10.1515/reveh-2021-0062).

Received: 2021-05-05

Accepted: 2021-07-02

Published Online: 2021-07-22

Published in Print: 2022-12-16

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Keywords for this article

audiology; cell phone; hearing impairment