The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA

Abstract #70011

Annie Steinberg, MD¹, Lisa Bain, MA², Yuelin Li, PhD³, and Olivia Thetgyi². (1) Psychiatry and Pediatrics, University of PA School of Medicine, 3535 Market Street, 9th floor, Deafness and Family Communication Center, Philadelphia, PA 19104, 215 590 7665, drannie@mail.med.upenn.edu, (2) Deafness Research, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, 3535 Market St., 9th floor, Philadelphia, PA 19104, (3) The Center for Outcomes Research, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, 3535 Market St., 10th floor, Philadelphia, PA 19104

Parents of children who are deaf or hard of hearing make many critical decisions throughout their child’s life. In order to make informed decisions, parents need access to information that is often highly technical and that is evolving rapidly. The Internet has become a widely used source of health information; however access is limited by socioeconomic, cultural, and linguistic differences among potential users. In order to break down barriers that limit access to Internet information on hearing loss, we created a website using plain language in both English and Spanish. We worked with parents, teachers, other professionals and literacy experts to ensure that our material was linguistically and culturally appropriate for our intended audience of hearing and Deaf parents in inner cities, rural areas, and Hispanic communities. In this presentation, we demonstrate our approach to providing accessible information on the Internet and how the site evolved as a result of the feedback we received from parents and professionals. We will discuss the challenges we faced and the solutions we found in attempting to provide complex and detailed information that could be easily understood by parents of children who are deaf.

Learning Objectives:

At the conclusion of this session, participants will be able to:
• Recognize the obstacles to information access on the Internet for people of diverse backgrounds.
• Recognize how information can be provided to parents of diverse socio-economic, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds using plain language.
• Understand the challenge in distilling complex information to the essential components necessary for informed decision making.

Keywords: Deaf, Children With Special Needs

Related Web page: www.raisingdeafkids.org

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.