Other Research Activities

Click on the links below to read more about NCDHR 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. TWG members reflect an equal number of deaf members who are native users of ASL and hearing members who are native users of English. The TWG has members with expertise in research methodology, health terminology, healthcare practice, Deaf culture, the healthcare knowledge and experiences of deaf people, medical interpreting, and sign language preferences and fluency variations within the deaf population.

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. We added a series of screener questions about hearing loss or deafness in the household (up to 18 questions, depending on the individual’s responses) as a way to try to estimate the size of the local Deaf and hard-of-hearing populations.

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. One item asked the participant to rate their own hearing on a four point scale (good, a little trouble, a lot of trouble, deaf); the other item asked if a parent/guardian is deaf or hard of hearing (yes, no, or don’t know). 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.

Last updated: 6/8/2010