Deaf and hard of hearing (d/hoh) individuals in the US are often forced to cope with extraordinary communication barriers when working with healthcare providers. They often receive healthcare services that are inadequate, inappropriate for their needs, and violate the most basic tenets of ethical medical practice. Furthermore, the average deaf patient has a poorer self-reported health status than the general population. These outcomes are due to the interplay of complex individual, interpersonal, and systemic factors.
Approximately 9% of the US population have a hearing impairment, making hearing loss the single most common chronic physical disability in the country. Of that group, roughly 1.8M Americans are deaf.
In this presentation I will provide an overview of the diverse factors affecting healthcare delivery and deaf patients, review the relevant literature, discuss associated ethical issues, and make recommendations for needed change. These factors include socioeconomic issues, the current health status of d/hoh people, relevant legal issues, the typical deaf patient’s healthcare knowledge base and personal healthcare experiences, and the perspective of the Deaf community. The provider's perspectives on disability issues, the effectiveness of communication strategies often employed by healthcare providers when working with d/hoh clients, and the systemic barriers encountered in healthcare delivery to this population are then discussed.
The talk concludes with an assessment of the impact of all of these factors on healthcare delivery to d/hoh people, the ethical implications of the current standard of care, and recommendations for change.
Learning Objectives: 1) Participants will be able to describe barriers to healthcare delivery between providers and deaf patients at the individual, sociocultural, organizational, and institutional level. 2) Particpants will be able to describe some reasonable, cost-effective solutions to some of those barriers
Keywords: Deaf Patients, Health Care Delivery
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.