摘要：Deaf people who use American Sign Language (ASL) are medically underserved and often excluded from health research and surveillance. We used a community participatory approach to develop and administer an ASL-accessible health survey. We identified deaf community strengths (e.g., a low prevalence of current smokers) and 3 glaring health inequities: obesity, partner violence, and suicide. This collaborative work represents the first time a deaf community has used its own data to identify health priorities. Deaf people who use American Sign Language (ASL) are medically underserved and often excluded from health research and public health surveillance. 1 , 2 ASL is different from English 3 and, as is the case with many of the world's languages, 4 has no written form. Many ASL users have been deaf since birth or early childhood. Biological and social determinants of health suggest that communities of ASL users should be predisposed to health inequities. 2 Rochester, New York, has a large population of deaf ASL users. The Rochester Prevention Research Center's National Center for Deaf Health Research (NCDHR) used a community participatory approach to develop and administer an ASL-accessible health survey to estimate deaf individuals' health status and health risk and to compare results with data from the local general population as a means of identifying health inequities.
