Health-Related Information Seeking among Deaf Adults: Findings from the 2017 Health Information National Trends Survey in American Sign Language (HINTS-ASL)

Abstract

Purpose: For deaf people who use American Sign Language (ASL), including cancer survivors, there are documented reports of difficulties in accessing and understanding health information. More than five years ago, a local breast cancer knowledge study with deaf signers found that only 23% of this sample cited the Internet as a source of health information. More research is needed to understand the current trends of a nationwide adult sample of deaf people’s experience with seeking and understanding health information across technology-mediated platforms.

Methodology/Approach: The Health Information National Trends Survey in American Sign Language survey included sections on health status, Internet use, and social media. We used several approaches to recruit deaf people across the USA, including Hawaii, Alaska, and Puerto Rico. The survey was administered online, in person, or through videophone. Following data cleaning, we conducted multiple logistic regression analyses, controlling for demographic factors associated with eHealth-seeking behaviors. The outcome variables of interest were Internet use and sharing health information on social media.

Findings: A total of 713 deaf people in USA (M = 49 years old; SD = 19) provided informed consent and took the survey. Half of the participants had a college degree. Twenty percent of the sample included those who self-identified as lesbian, gay, or bisexual and 38% who were people of color. White, educated, or younger deaf adults were more likely to cite the Internet as the first source of health information. Although all sub-groups were comparable in using social media, younger or ASL/English bilingual deaf adults were more likely to actively share health information through social media. While perceived trust in health information on the Internet did not differ across subgroups within the deaf sample, frustration in finding and understanding information was strongly linked to increasing age as well as those who prefer using ASL only. Users of YouTube for health-related information were likely to be younger or female.

Conclusions: Deaf users of eHealth information are diverse in terms of language usage, which affects their perception of accessing and using health information across technology-mediated platforms. While using YouTube for health appears to be accessible to deaf people, further improvements are needed to make health information sharing through social media inclusive of people who prefer ASL only. The addition of multimodal delivery features (text, audio, and video) in social networking sites has the strong potential to improve health information access and inclusion for all groups, including deaf ASL users. To make online health information inclusive of all groups, materials need to be accessible and easy to understand by all groups.

Citation

Kushalnagar, P. and Kushalnagar, R. (2018), "Health-Related Information Seeking among Deaf Adults: Findings from the 2017 Health Information National Trends Survey in American Sign Language (HINTS-ASL)", Hale, T.M., Chou, W.-Y.S., Cotten, S.R. and Khilnani, A. (Ed.) eHealth: Current Evidence, Promises, Perils and Future Directions (Studies in Media and Communications, Vol. 15), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 69-91. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2050-206020180000015008