Research
"Little is known about disease trends, underlying attitudes, or health behaviors among Deaf or hard-of-hearing people," says Thomas A. Pearson, M.D., Ph.D., MPH, FAAPHS and NCDHR Principal Investigator/Program Director. "This population is woefully understudied and undeserved."
Deaf Weight-Wise
Core Research Project (2009-2014)
The overall goal of the Deaf Weight-Wise (DWW) research study is to establish the effectiveness of an intervention to reduce weight gain and obesity in Deaf people who use American Sign Language (ASL) as their primary language.
Deaf Healthcare Survey (CAHPS®)
NCDHR is developing the Deaf Healthcare Survey, a computer-based sign language version of the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS®). CAHPS® is a family of surveys that focus on patients’ experiences with healthcare in doctor’s offices, hospitals, and other healthcare settings.
Deaf Health Survey
Core Research Project (2004-2009): Determinants of Health Risk in the Deaf Population
NCDHR developed the Deaf Health Survey to assess the levels and determinants of risk behaviors and disease in the Deaf population. The computer-based survey interface was developed to work on a touch-screen computer kiosk. We designed this sign language survey to be accessible to a broad segment of the population. The Deaf Health Survey allows us to establish comparisons with local and national surveillance studies, and with Healthy People 2010 objectives, in order to better define health and health disparities in the Rochester Deaf population. We also developed generalizable measures and methods that can be used in research and health surveillance with Deaf populations in other locations.
NCDHR College Health Behavior Survey
Core Research Project (2004-2009)
NCDHR researchers developed the College Health Behavior Survey in order to identify important health risk behaviors of deaf and hard-of-hearing college students. In 2005, we administered the survey to freshmen students at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) and the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID).
Deaf Moms and Infant Care: Assessing their knowledge and practices through focus group discussions
NCDHR researchers recently conducted a community-originated pioneering qualitative study of how Deaf women receive information about infant care. We conducted 4 focus groups of deaf mothers in Rochester, NY. The goal was to understand individual behavior within a broader context using a social ecological model.
rap (COMING SOON)
Deaf Perceptions Project
Description:
The goal of the Deaf Cardiovascular Health Perceptions Study is to contribute knowledge on the perceptions of cardiovascular health among the deaf linguistic minority in areas such as Rochester, NY, Denver, CO and Raleigh, NC. Due to the language barriers and society's heavy reliance on auditory-oriented method of information dispersal, this group has fewer opportunities to acquire knowledge of cardiovascular health compared to hearing native English speakers. It is unclear as to whether there are further discrepancies in their cardiovascular health perceptions among the deaf minority groups who share other racial and ethnic identities compared to those hearing individuals sharing similar racial and ethnic identities.
realm (coming soon)
student research (coming soon)
Other Research Activities
Translation Workgroup (TWG)
The Translation Workgroup (TWG) is made up of bilingual (ASL and English) individuals who have extensive experience in English-ASL translation and in Deaf and hearing cross-cultural relations.
Including deaf people in health surveillance
NCDHR helped to develop the Monroe County Department of Public Health telephone BRFSS, which surveyed 2,546 adults via random digit dialing in summer 2006.
Identifying deaf adolescents on a local YRBS
The Monroe County Department of Public Health administers the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) to Rochester high school students every two years. NCDHR added two items to the 2005 MC-YRBS. Our goal with these questions was to begin to examine health behaviors in deaf and hard of hearing students and in families with a deaf parent.