International Organization for Standardization

Acoustics - Statistical distribution of hearing thresholds related to age and gender - Third Edition
 N 7029

Annotation

This document provides descriptive statistics of the hearing threshold deviation for populations of otologically normal persons of various ages under monaural earphone listening conditions. It specifies the following, for populations within the age limits from 18 years to 80 years for the range of audiometric frequencies from 125 Hz to 8 000 Hz:

a) the expected median value of hearing thresholds given relative to the median hearing threshold at the age of 18 years;

b) the expected statistical distribution above and below the median value.

For the frequencies from 3 000 Hz to 8 000 Hz, the median and statistical distribution for populations above 70 years are presented for information only.

This document also provides for information the expected median values at audiometric frequencies from 9 000 Hz to 12 500 Hz within the age limits from 22 years to 80 years.

The data are applicable for estimating the amount of hearing loss caused by a specific agent in a population. Such a comparison is valid if the population under study consists of persons who are otologically normal except for the effect of the specific agent. Noise exposure is an example of a specific agent and for this application, selected data from this document are referred to as “database A” in ISO 1999.

NOTE 1 ISO 1999:2013, Database A is based on a previous edition of ISO 7029.

The data may also be used to assess an individual’s hearing in relation to the distribution of hearing thresholds which is normal for the person’s age group. However, it is not possible to determine for an individual precisely which part of an observed hearing loss is attributable to an accumulation of detrimental effects on the hearing which increase with age, and which part has been caused by other factors such as noise.