World Wide Hearing Foundation International (World Wide Hearing or WWH), a non-profit
organization that provides access to affordable hearing aids and hearing care, has created a mobile data-collection application combined with a web portal for data aggregation to simplify carrying out the World Health Organization (WHO) hearing loss prevalence studies. The WWH App is Android-based, free of charge and can be used both online and offline to capture patient data using the WHO hearing loss data collection form.

By replacing the traditional paper-based data collection system with a mobile, Android-based application, prevalence studies can be conducted more time- and cost-effectively by reducing the need for manual data entry and transcription. Furthermore, the web-based administrator portal enables researchers and/or project leads to track progress and data collection in real time.

APPLICATION

The WWH app uses the latest version of the WHO data collection form for hearing loss
prevalence studies. This data collection form includes the following sections:

- Consent form
- Patient history questionnaire
- Hearing examination
- Tympanometry
- Ear examination
- Causes of hearing loss/recommended action questionnaires.

All of these sections can be filled out on a single Android device or by different team members on multiple devices. If the devices have an active internet connection during the field tests, the app will sync data between the different Android units, giving the different team members access to the previously recorded data from other devices. If internet is not available during field tests, tested persons will be given the same Patient ID on different devices so that the datasets can be matched in the backend.