Promotion of Healthy Humor Cancer Education Messages for the Deaf Community.

The Deaf community members of this community-campus partnership identified the lack of health information in American Sign Language (ASL) as a significant barrier to increasing the Deaf community's health knowledge. Studies have shown that the delivery of health messages in ASL increased Deaf study participants' cancer knowledge. Once health messages are available on the Internet, strategies are needed to attract viewers to the website and to make repeat visits in order to promote widespread knowledge gains. This feasibility study used the entertainment-education strategy of coupling cancer information with jokes in ASL to increase the appeal and impact of the health messages. ASL-delivered cancer control messages coupled with Deaf-friendly jokes were shown to 62 Deaf participants. Participants completed knowledge questionnaires before, immediately after, and 1 week after viewing the paired videos. Participants' health knowledge statistically significantly increased after viewing the paired videos and the gain was retained 1 week later. Participants also reported sharing the newly acquired information with others. Statistically significant results were demonstrated across nearly all measures, including a sustained increase in cancer-information-seeking behavior and intent to improve health habits. Most participants reported that they would be motivated to return to such a website and refer others to it, provided that it was regularly updated with new jokes.

Assessing deaf cultural competency of physicians and medical students.

The Medical Students, Cancer Control, and the Deaf Community Training program (DCT) intended to create physicians who were culturally competent to care for deaf patients were evaluated. DCT medical students (n = 22), UCSD medical faculty (n = 131), and non-DCT medical students (n = 211) were anonymously surveyed about their perceptions related to deaf patients, deaf cultural competency, and interpreter use. The faculty and non-DCT medical students displayed less knowledge than the DCT students. These findings suggest that training medical students in deaf cultural competency can significantly increase their capacity to care for community members and reduce the health disparities experienced by this community.

Bringing prostate cancer education to deaf men.

INTRODUCTION: A review of the scientific literature yielded no examples of programs that were designed to give deaf men access to information about prostate cancer, early detection, and treatment. The community's diverse linguistic abilities, multiple preferences for receiving information, and the small size of the community, create additional challenges for health educators. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A prostate cancer education program was adapted for deaf men (N=121), with the goal of creating a single program that could meet the educational needs of this diverse community. The program was evaluated using baseline, post-test, and two-month follow-up surveys, plus focus group discussions. RESULTS: Overall, baseline knowledge about prostate cancer and awareness of the screening options for the early detection of prostate cancer increased significantly at post-test and this gain was maintained at the two-month follow-up. While prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening and digital rectal exams also increased among men 50 and older, the increase was not statistically significant, possibly a consequence of the small sample size. Participants' reported their preferred methods of communication. Greater knowledge gains were demonstrated among those who preferred communications via American Sign Language (ASL) versus English-based communications. CONCLUSION: Cancer education programs offered in ASL can help address health knowledge disparities and that in turn can contribute to alleviating these disparities. Clinicians and health educators can help raise the deaf community's health awareness through programs such as this one, which ultimately evolved into the Internet accessible ASL video: Prostate Cancer: Know Your Options.