Ontologies in Hearing Impairment
Structural Analysis and Perspectives on Semantic Interoperability
Keywords:
Hearing Health, Interoperability, OntologyAbstract
Hearing impairment requires solutions that promote semantic interoperability and clinical data integration. In this context, ontologies play a fundamental role in the formal representation and standardization of biomedical knowledge, supporting data sharing across heterogeneous health information systems. This study maps, characterizes, compares, and analyzes ontologies related to hearing impairment, aiming to identify conceptual overlaps and potential points of interoperability. An exploratory-descriptive approach was adopted, following PRISMA guidelines to identify and evaluate ontologies associated with hearing health. Based on thematic relevance and conceptual scope, the Hearing Impairment Ontology (HIO) and the Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine – Clinical Terms (SNOMED CT) were selected for comparative analysis. Ontology alignment was performed using AgreementMakerLight (AML) with a similarity threshold of 0.5. The comparison identified 39 valid correspondences among 797 classes in SNOMED CT and 495 classes in HIO, indicating a low direct semantic overlap between the ontologies. Correspondences were concentrated in established clinical concepts related to hearing loss, while differences were observed in genetic, phenotypic, and therapeutic domains. The results suggest complementarity between the ontologies and reinforce the importance of semantic alignment strategies to support interoperability among clinical and biomedical data in hearing healthcare and computational audiology.Downloads
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