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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Barbara A. Berman, PhD, A2-125 CHS, UCLA-DCPCR, Box 956900, 650 Charles Young Drive South (Box 956900), Los Angeles, CA 90095-6900, Debra S. Guthmann, EdD, Pupil Services, California School for the Deaf, Fremont, 39350 Gallaudet Drive, Fremont, CA 94538, and Leanne Streja, MS, A2-125 CHS, UCLA School of Public Health, Box 956900, 650 Charles Young Drive South (Box 956900), Los Angeles, CA 90095-6900, 3107949283, lstreja@ucla.edu.

Deaf and hard-of-hearing (Deaf/HH) youth are at risk for tobacco use and many of those who smoke want to quit. However prevention and cessation materials and messages available to hearing youth are often inaccessible and inadequate for Deaf/HH young people. No culturally and linguistically appropriate programming for this population has ever been developed or rigorously evaluated. Simply translating programs designed for hearing youth is not the answer, failing as these interventions do to specifically address aspects of deaf youth culture and experience, or the educational circumstances of this population. We report here on a multi-study TRDRP-supported program of research, the first of its kind, designed to achieve an excellent, tailored, comprehensive school-based anti-tobacco program for this underserved and understudied population. We summarize steps taken to explore the tobacco-related knowledge, attitudes, practices, and programming requirements of Deaf/HH youth through surveys and interviews with deaf children, adolescents and young adults, and with educators serving this population. We examine the collaborative efforts of experts in deaf education and tobacco control researchers to develop a school-based tobacco prevention curriculum tailored to the unique cultural, social and communication requirements of this population. We describe the current implementation and assessment of this program through a three-year quasi-experimental non-equivalent control group design involving 800 Deaf/HH children and teenagers at four schools for the deaf in California, New Jersey, and Minnesota. We outline our plans for disseminating our study findings to the Deaf community and schools/programs (day/residential/mainstream) serving Deaf/HH youth in California and nationwide.

Learning Objectives:

• 1. To become familiar with a innovative curriculum developed to work with Deaf/HH youth.
• 2. To learn about the many uses for the Hands Off Tobacco Prevention Curriculum.
• 3. To describe an intervention research program to develop and test a first ever tobacco learning curriculum guide for teachers of Deaf/HH youth.

Keywords: Deaf, Smoking

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation