Abstract
BackgroundDuring the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a rapid increase in the amount of information about the disease and SARS-CoV-2 on the internet. If the language used in video messages is not clear or understandable to deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) people with a high school degree or less, this can cause confusion and result in information gaps among DHH people during a health emergency.ObjectiveThe aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between DHH people's perception of the effectiveness of physical distancing and contagiousness of an asymptomatic person.MethodsThis is a cross-sectional survey study on DHH people's perceptions about COVID-19 (N=475). Items pertaining to COVID-19 knowledge were administered to US deaf adults from April 17, 2020, to May 1, 2020, via a bilingual American Sign Language/English online survey platform.ResultsThe sample consisted of 475 DHH adults aged 18-88 years old, with 74% (n=352) identifying as White and 54% (n=256) as female. About 88% (n=418) of the sample felt they knew most things or a lot about physical distancing. This figure dropped to 72% (n=342) for the question about the effectiveness of physical distancing in reducing the spread of COVID-19 and 70% (n=333) for the question about the contagiousness of an infected person without symptoms. Education and a knowledge of the effectiveness of physical distancing significantly predicted knowledge about the contagiousness of an asymptomatic individual. Race, gender, and age did not emerge as significant predictors.ConclusionsThis results of this study point to the strong connection between education and coronavirus-related knowledge. Education-related disparities can be remedied by making information fully accessible and easily understood during emergencies and pandemics.
Highlights
Health disparities have been experienced by deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) people in general, as well as during the COVID-19 pandemic
For DHH people who speak American Sign Language (ASL), equitable access to health information requires an interpreter to translate between spoken English and ASL, as well as captioning, for information given during live broadcasts about an emergency
Previous studies have shown that DHH people with a high school degree or less have lower human papillomavirus knowledge, genetic testing awareness, and HIV screening uptake, all of which can be remedied with greater accessibility of pertinent information in ASL [6,7,8]
Summary
Health disparities have been experienced by deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) people in general, as well as during the COVID-19 pandemic. For DHH people who speak American Sign Language (ASL), equitable access to health information requires an interpreter to translate between spoken English and ASL, as well as captioning, for information given during live broadcasts about an emergency. If the language used in video messages is not clear or understandable to deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) people with a high school degree or less, this can cause confusion and result in information gaps among DHH people during a health emergency. Objective: The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between DHH people's perception of the effectiveness of physical distancing and contagiousness of an asymptomatic person. Education-related disparities can be remedied by making information fully accessible and understood during emergencies and pandemics
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