Thursday, October 23, 2008

Welcome to the Deaf Health blog!

Deaf Health was created by medical students at the University of Rochester in western New York to help improve health information access for the Deaf community. We understand that the Deaf community faces great challenges when it comes to health information and this blog is intended to help bridge that gap.

Our goal in creating this site is two-fold. First, we want to provide a frequently updated resource page for online Deaf health resources. Second, and more importantly, we plan to periodically post ASL videos on various relevant health topics. Rather than duplicate some of the great work done on other sites such as DeafMD.org and DeafDoc.org that use a more lecture style format, our videos will portray a conversation as doctor and patient struggle with learning together about these important topics.

How are topics for videos chosen? Members of our team are working closely with The National Center for Deaf Health Research which is working on an exciting survey to identify and define important disparities and important health topics related to the Deaf community. Our initial project, based upon interviews with Deaf members of the Rochester area, and preliminary data from the Rochester Deaf Health Survey, will focus on obesity. In the future, we plan to continue referring to the results of this study when they become available and interviewing Deaf individuals in our area to identify other important topics.

How will videos be available for viewing? We want the information we provide to be easily accessible. We will post the videos as they are completed here on this blog. In addition, we plan to post them in higher video quality in another location still to be determined. Finally, we will have DVD copies available for purchase by individuals or physicians.

How often will new videos come out? Medical students at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry will continue to make videos with support from a variety of organizations and help from the local Deaf community. We anticipate that there will be two to three new videos created each year.

We hope you find this site helpful and educational,

The DeafHealth blog team.