Deaf culture awareness among physicians and advanced practice providers in the emergency department: A multicenter study

In areas with a large Deaf/hard-of-hearing (DHH) population, emergency medicine (EM) providers may benefit from cultural awareness training as this has been shown to foster delivery of more equitable care in other minority populations. Rochester, New York, has been touted to be the home to the largest per-capita DHH population in the United States. Given the large local DHH community and DHH professionals working in Rochester, University of Rochester (UR) providers likely have higher exposure to DHH people than most other EM providers in the United States. All UR providers receive annual institutional cultural sensitivity e-training that includes information about the DHH community. In addition to the e-training, the UR EM residents also receive a workshop during intern year and recurrent DHH culture education throughout their residency. The purpose of this study was to measure impact of preexisting cultural sensitivity training and higher DHH person exposure on DHH cultural awareness in UR providers compared to non-UR EM providers who may have lower DHH person exposure and culture training.