The Oldenburg Hearing Health Record (OHHR)

Abstract

Hearing health is shaped by both measurable auditory function and the perceived ability to navigate daily life. To fully understand its complexities, objective assessments of hearing and functional performance must be complemented by subjective reports on lived hearing experiences. The Oldenburg Hearing Health Record (OHHR) was developed to unite these measures, offering a comprehensive and open-access resource for hearing health. It contains data from 581 adults aged 18-86 years (255 females; mean age = 67.31 years; SD = 11.93) with varying degrees of hearing loss. Data were collected between 2013 and 2015 at the Hörzentrum Oldenburg in collaboration with Hearing4all. OHHR includes audiometric tests (Pure Tone Audiometry, Loudness Scaling, Speech in Noise tests), self-reports on hearing difficulties, lifestyle, technology use, and cognitive assessments (DemTect, Vocabulary size test). These measurements remain relevant in clinical and research settings. The dataset supports cross-disciplinary analyses linking hearing ability with cognition and quality of life, contributing to personalized hearing healthcare and advancing precision medicine.

Fig. 1

Self-reported causes of hearing difficulties. Note. Absolute frequencies of self-reported causes of hearing difficulties in the OHHR dataset (N = 581). A total of 370 individuals reported a perceived cause of hearing loss, while 72 reported not knowing the reason and 139 reported normal hearing. Age-related hearing loss (ARHL) or presbycusis showed the highest prevalence among the reported causes (n = 134). Other reported causes included noise induced (n = 48), sudden deafness (n = 43), explosion or firing practice (n = 40), congenital causes (n = 16), and various other factors (e.g., ear surgery, hereditary factors, tinnitus, infections, concerts, medication, injury, otosclerosis; n = 2–15).

Fig. 2

Overview of the data folders and tools of OHHR. Note. (a) The data folder contains the core JSON dataset files, including audiogram and loudness scaling tables with linked components (indicated by a downward arrow) that must be joined for use. Taxonomy files define response categories. The tools folder provides resources for data visualization and processing using MATLAB, Python, Excel, and SQL. (b) The metadata folder includes documentation and schema files. RTF files describe each dataset, while JSON schema files define their structure and format.

Fig. 3

Univariate and bivariate distributions of audiological measures stratified by hearing status. Note: PTA (Pure Tone Average) - Measures hearing sensitivity across frequencies (0.5, 1, 2, 4 kHz) using air (AC) and bone conduction (BC) thresholds for both left and right ears, expressed in decibels Hearing Level (dB HL). SRT_DTT (Speech Reception Threshold – Digit Triplet Test) - Assesses the ability to understand digit sequences in background noise at 50% accuracy, expressed in decibels Signal-to-Noise Ratio (dB SNR). SRT GÖSA (Speech Reception Threshold – Göttingen Sentence Test) - Evaluates speech recognition at 50% accuracy with sentences presented in noise, expressed in dBSNR. Off-diagonal plots display the bivariate scatterplots between each pair of measures for normal-hearing (NH; blue) and deaf or hard of hearing (D/HH; red) individuals. Both axes represent the respective measurement values in dB HL for PTA and dB SNR for DTT and GÖSA. Diagonal plots show the distribution of each measure by hearing status, with the x-axis representing measurement values (in dB HL or dB SNR) and the y-axis representing probability density. Correlation coefficients (Pearson’s r) for each pair are shown in the upper triangle: Overall, NH, and D/HH., illustrating their relationships within and across groups.

Fig. 4

Bivariate distributions of objective auditory measures (PTA Air and Bone conduction, Speech in noise measures) by self-reported hearing severity. Note. Comparison of self-reported hearing difficulties and objective auditory measures across three domains: Air Conduction (a), Bone Conduction (b), and Speech-in-Noise Measures (c). The violin plots display the distribution of Pure Tone Average (PTA) thresholds at key frequencies (500, 1000, 2000, and 4000 Hz) for both ears, measured through bone and air conduction, as well as Speech Recognition Thresholds (SRT in dB SNR) from the Digit Triplet Test (DTT) and Göttingen Sentence Test (GÖSA). Self-reported hearing problems are categorized by severity in quiet and noise conditions. Black dots represent individual data points, and solid lines indicate the Mean ± Standard deviation. These plots illustrate how subjective perceptions of hearing difficulties align with objective auditory thresholds and speech-in-noise performance across different tests.