Community participatory research with deaf sign language users to identify health inequities.
Deaf people who use American Sign Language (ASL) are medically underserved and often excluded from health research and surveillance. We used a community participatory approach to develop and administer an ASL-accessible health survey. We identified deaf community strengths (e.g., a low prevalence of current smokers) and 3 glaring health inequities: obesity, partner violence, and suicide. This collaborative work represents the first time a deaf community has used its own data to identify health priorities.
Department of Family Medicine, Rochester Prevention Research Center/National Center for Deaf Health Research, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY 14642, USA.
Steven
S
Barnett
Jonathan D
JD
Klein
Robert Q
RQ
Pollard
Vincent
V
Samar
Deirdre
D
Schlehofer
Matthew
M
Starr
Erika
E
Sutter
Hongmei
H
Yang
Thomas A
TA
Pearson
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D003144:Communication Barriers; D003256:Community Participation; D003625:Data Collection; D017579:Domestic Violence; D005260:Female; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009518:New York / Q000453:epidemiology; D009765:Obesity / Q000453:epidemiology; D019986:Persons with Hearing Disabilities / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012813:Sign Language; D012907:Smoking / Q000453:epidemiology; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013405:Suicide / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D055815:Young Adult