Communication and language barriers isolate Deaf American Sign Language (ASL) users from mass media, healthcare messages, and health care communication, which when coupled with social marginalization, places them at a high risk for inadequate health literacy. Our objectives were to translate, adapt, and develop an accessible health literacy instrument in ASL and to assess the prevalence and correlates of inadequate health literacy among Deaf ASL users and hearing English speakers using a cross-sectional design. A total of 405 participants (166 Deaf and 239 hearing) were enrolled in the study. The Newest Vital Sign was adapted, translated, and developed into an ASL version of the NVS (ASL-NVS). Forty-eight percent of Deaf participants had inadequate health literacy, and Deaf individuals were 6.9 times more likely than hearing participants to have inadequate health literacy. The new ASL-NVS, available on a self-administered computer platform, demonstrated good correlation with reading literacy. The prevalence of Deaf ASL users with inadequate health literacy is substantial, warranting further interventions and research.

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OBJECTIVE To examine the association between hearing aids (HAs) and time to diagnosis of Alzheimer disease (AD) or dementia, anxiety or depression, and injurious falls among adults, aged 66 years and older, within 3 years of hearing loss (HL) diagnosis. DESIGN Retrospective cohort study. SETTING We used 2008 to 2016 national longitudinal claims data (based on office visit, inpatient, or outpatient healthcare encounters) from a large private payer. We used Kaplan‐Meier curves to examine unadjusted disease‐free survival and crude and adjusted Cox regression models to examine associations between HAs and time to diagnosis of three age‐related/HL‐associated conditions within 3 years of HL diagnosis. All models were adjusted for age, sex, race/ethnicity, census divisions, and prior diagnosis of cardiovascular conditions, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, obesity, and diabetes. PARTICIPANTS The participants included 114 862 adults, aged 66 years and older, diagnosed with HL. MEASUREMENT Diagnosis of (1) AD or dementia; (2) depression or anxiety; and (3) injurious falls. INTERVENTION Use of HAs. RESULTS Large sex and racial/ethnic differences exist in HA use. Approximately 11.3% of women vs 13.3% of men used HAs (95% confidence interval [CI] difference = −0.024 to −0.016). Approximately 13.6% of whites (95% CI = 0.13‐0.14) vs 9.8% of blacks (95% CI = 0.09‐0.11) and 6.5% of Hispanics (95% CI = 0.06‐0.07) used HAs. The risk‐adjusted hazard ratios of being diagnosed with AD/dementia, anxiety/depression, and injurious falls within 3 years after HL diagnosis, for those who used HAs vs those who did not, were 0.82 (95% CI = 0.76‐0.89), 0.89 (95% CI = 0.86‐0.93), and 0.87 (95% CI = 0.80‐0.95), respectively. CONCLUSIONS Use of HAs is associated with delayed diagnosis of AD, dementia, depression, anxiety, and injurious falls among older adults with HL. Although we have shown an association between use of HAs and reduced risk of physical and mental decline, randomized trials are needed to determine whether, and to what extent, the relationship is causal. J Am Geriatr Soc 67:2362–2369, 2019

This study demonstrates the beneficial outcomes of use of HAs in reducing the probability of any ED visits and any hospitalizations and in reducing the number of nights in the hospital. Although use of HAs reduced total Medicare costs, it significantly increased total and out-of-pocket health care spending. This information may have implications for Medicare regarding covering HAs for patients with HL.

Background Deaf American Sign Language (ASL) users comprise a linguistic minority population with poor health care access due to communication barriers and low health literacy. Potentially, these health care barriers could increase Emergency Department (ED) use. Objective To compare ED use between deaf and non-deaf patients. Method A retrospective cohort from medical records. The sample was derived from 400 randomly selected charts (200 deaf ASL users and 200 hearing English speakers) from an outpatient primary care health center with a high volume of deaf patients. Abstracted data included patient demographics, insurance, health behavior, and ED use in the past 36 months. Results Deaf patients were more likely to be never smokers and be insured through Medicaid. In an adjusted analysis, deaf individuals were significantly more likely to use the ED (odds ratio [OR], 1.97; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.11–3.51) over the prior 36 months. Conclusion Deaf American Sign Language users appear to be at greater odds for elevated ED utilization when compared to the general hearing population. Efforts to further understand the drivers for increased ED utilization among deaf ASL users are much needed.