Deaf Health Review

One strategy to reduce health disparities for the Deaf is to facilitate the training of students from their communities to become healthcare providers and educators. A barrier to this strategy is the unfounded fear by medical schools that accommodating Deaf students in fast-paced, stressful rotations such as Emergency Medicine is either not possible or too difficult and expensive. Meeks et al. describe the case of a Deaf medical student who successfully completed an Emergency Department (ED) rotation, using the following strategies: The student disclosed the disability 2 months prior to the beginning of the rotation, giving the medical school staff time to craft the appropriate accommodations The ED and college disability directors held a training session for ED staff on how to work with deaf students in the clinical setting 2 weeks before the student arrived Designated interpreters with specialized training in healthcare terminology were hired for every experience the student wo...

Food insecurity is increasingly being recognized as a barrier to the success of college students. Keogh et al. conducted a survey of Deaf students at Gallaudet University (n=166) to determine their level of food security and its contributing factors. 12.9% of the students reported high food insecurity and an additional 26.4% were at-risk for food insecurity, a similar rate to the general US college population. Students who reported never receiving peer support were 16.3 times more likely to experience food insecurity than those who reported always receiving peer support. The authors conclude that the university needs to increase its efforts to promote peer support among its students. Paywalled Keogh B., Kushalnagar P., & Engelman A. (2018). Peer support and food security in deaf college students. J Am Coll Health , 10.1080/07448481.2018.1515750.

Prostate cancer (PCa) is a common disease of men, but the optimal screening strategy for it is still not clear. The Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) test is often used for screening for PCa, although its accuracy for this purpose is low. Because of this, the US Preventive Services Task Force recommends that the use of PSA screening be based on shared decision making (SDM) between doctors and their patients. SDM is highly dependent on effective communication, and previous research has shown this is often lacking for Deaf patients in healthcare settings. Kushalnagar et al. surveyed Deaf and hearing men in whom PSA screening was indicated; one group because of their age (45-69 years; n=162 Deaf & 708 hearing) and another group because of a family history of cancer (n=156 Deaf & 192 hearing). The Deaf men in both groups felt significantly less engaged in SDM than their hearing counterparts. For the men in the older age group who had had previous cancer, Deaf men were significantly...