Communication Service for the Deaf, Inc. Receives $250,000 Engagement Award from PCORI

August 15, 2024 at 08:00 AM EDT

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Communication Service for the Deaf, Inc. (CSD) has been awarded $250,000 through the Eugene Washington PCORI Engagement Award Program, an initiative of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). The funding will support a two-year project titled "Building Capacity for Deaf American Sign Language Users in Virtual Healthcare PCOR/CER," running from November 1, 2024 through October 31, 2026.

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly accelerated the adoption of telemedicine in healthcare yet little is known about best practices for the Deaf community. Deaf individuals who use American Sign Language (ASL) face communication and health literacy challenges, making virtual healthcare services potentially inaccessible and inequitable.

CSD’s health and patient advocacy division, DeafHealth, will recruit a diverse group of stakeholders to form a national Deaf Patient Coalition. This coalition will identify and capture diverse Deaf patient experiences with virtual healthcare platforms to help shape future patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR) and comparative clinical effectiveness research (CER) focused on healthcare virtual platforms for the Deaf community. By collaborating with academic institutions, researchers, and patient communities, this groundbreaking project aims to advance equitable care and decision-making among Deaf patients that aligns with patient-centric outcomes and preferences.

The project will be directed by project lead Allysa Dittmar, MHS, Vice President of DeafHealth. Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), under the leadership of Dr. Tiffany Panko, executive director of the Deaf Health Care & Biomedical Science Hub and director of the Deaf Health Laboratory at RIT’s National Technical Institute for the Deaf will support the project.

“Deaf people comprise approximately 13% or 30 million of the American population, yet they are often overlooked in research. We are grateful to PCORI for this opportunity to promote equitable participation and engagement for both Deaf patients and researchers alike," said Dittmar. "The lack of opportunities for our community has hindered the ability to identify effective interventions to improve the health and wellbeing of Deaf people who use ASL. As healthcare increasingly shifts to virtual platforms for care and treatment, it is crucial to include the Deaf population, researchers, and stakeholders to ensure that future PCOR/CER research is patient-centered and equitable.”

By incorporating diverse lived Deaf patient experiences, this project empowers this historically marginalized community with the resources and PCOR/CER knowledge necessary to drive community-centered change for improved health outcomes, aligning with PCORI’s mission to empower patients and others. In the long term, the project provides an opportunity to propose future PCOR/CER studies that align with the community’s identified priorities regarding virtual healthcare platforms for the Deaf community.

PCORI is an independent, nonprofit organization authorized by Congress with a mission to fund patient-centered comparative clinical effectiveness research that provides patients, their caregivers, and clinicians with the evidence-based information they need to make better informed health and healthcare decisions.

For more information on the PCORI Engagement Award and CSD's funded project, visit here. Projects approved for funding by PCORI’s Engagement Award Program were selected through a rigorous and highly competitive review process, assessing their ability to meet PCORI's engagement goals and objectives, as well as program criteria.

About Communication Service for the Deaf, Inc. Communication Service for the Deaf (CSD) is the largest Deaf-led social impact organization in the world. For more than four decades, CSD has been a leader in creating and providing accessible and innovative solutions for the Deaf community. Through CSD's patient and health advocacy division, DeafHealth focuses on improving health outcomes for deaf and hard-of-hearing patients through state-wide initiatives by providing culturally and linguistically accessible health information, resources, and services. For more information, please visit CSD and follow CSD on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

About Rochester Institute of Technology’s National Technical Institute for the Deaf

Established by the U.S. Congress in 1965, the National Technical Institute for the Deaf is the first and largest technological college in the world for deaf and hard-of-hearing students. NTID offers associate degree programs for deaf and hard-of-hearing students and provides support and access services for deaf and hard-of-hearing students who study in the other eight colleges of Rochester Institute of Technology. NTID also offers certificate programs in educational, deaf, healthcare, trilingual, and signed language translation interpretation, as well as bachelor’s degree programs in sign language interpreting and community development and leadership, and master’s degrees in secondary education and healthcare interpretation. Deaf and hard-of-hearing students come from all over the United States and around the world to take advantage of the opportunities available to them at RIT/NTID. Visit RIT/NTID and follow on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.