Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2024 Apr 16;19(4):e0298479.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0298479. eCollection 2024.

Health outcomes in Deaf signing populations: A systematic review

Katherine D Rogers  1 , Aleix Rowlandson  2 , James Harkness  3 , Gemma Shields  2 , Alys Young  1
Affiliations

Health outcomes in Deaf signing populations: A systematic review

Katherine D Rogers et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Objectives: (i) To identify peer reviewed publications reporting the mental and/or physical health outcomes of Deaf adults who are sign language users and to synthesise evidence; (ii) If data available, to analyse how the health of the adult Deaf population compares to that of the general population; (iii) to evaluate the quality of evidence in the identified publications; (iv) to identify limitations of the current evidence base and suggest directions for future research.

Design: Systematic review.

Data sources: Medline, Embase, PsychINFO, and Web of Science.

Eligibility criteria for selecting studies: The inclusion criteria were Deaf adult populations who used a signed language, all study types, including methods-focused papers which also contain results in relation to health outcomes of Deaf signing populations. Full-text articles, published in peer-review journals were searched up to 13th June 2023, published in English or a signed language such as ASL (American Sign Language).

Data extraction: Supported by the Rayyan systematic review software, two authors independently reviewed identified publications at each screening stage (primary and secondary). A third reviewer was consulted to settle any disagreements. Comprehensive data extraction included research design, study sample, methodology, findings, and a quality assessment.

Results: Of the 35 included studies, the majority (25 out of 35) concerned mental health outcomes. The findings from this review highlighted the inequalities in health and mental health outcomes for Deaf signing populations in comparison with the general population, gaps in the range of conditions studied in relation to Deaf people, and the poor quality of available data.

Conclusions: Population sample definition and consistency of standards of reporting of health outcomes for Deaf people who use sign language should be improved. Further research on health outcomes not previously reported is needed to gain better understanding of Deaf people's state of health.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. PRISMA flow diagram: The findings from the searches.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. World Health Organization. Deafness and hearing loss. [Internet]. 2021 [updated 2023 February 27; cited 2023 June 26]. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/deafness-and-hearing-loss.
    1. National Geographic. [Internet]. 2023 [updated 2023 October 19; cited 2023 October 31]. https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/sign-language/
    1. United Nations. [Internet]. 2023 [cited 2023 October 31]. https://www.un.org/en/observances/sign-languages-day
    1. Sutton-Spence R, Woll B. The linguistics of British Sign Language: an introduction. Cambridge, UK; 1999.
    1. Ladd P. Understanding Deaf Culture: In search of Deafhood. Clevedon; 2003.

Publication types