589-P: Diabetes Training for Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Community Health Workers

Introduction & Objective: Deaf Diabetes Can Together (DDCT) is a diabetes self-management education and support intervention for individuals who communicate using American Sign Language (ASL). The Deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) community indicated the need for DHH Community Health Workers (CHW) to co-deliver DDCT. The purpose of this pilot was to describe an adapted CHW training for DHH and its feasibility.

Methods: Participants were those who had previously completed DDCT and self-identified interest in becoming a CHW (N=3). The CHW training included eleven 2-hour sessions, during which CHWs trainees watched the videos together on zoom with 2 rotating ASL interpreters. Existing CHW training videos were adapted by adding closed captioning as appropriate. Concurrently, participants had their training videos running on a personal computer. Quizzes were signed in ASL and completed individually. CHW trainees were asked to evaluate the training via interview.

Results: Participants completed the CHW training in 22 hours, longer than the standard CHW training lasting 11-14 hours, due to deaf culture adaptations. According to participants, helpful components included diabetes-specialty nurse practitioners in attendance to clarify content and downloadable resources. One complaint was that despite the videos having closed captioning added, the font size was too small to be accessible. Automated captions on Zoom were needed for size, but not 100% accurate.

Conclusions: Despite the pilot nature of the study, completion of the 22 hours of planned training by three DHH trainees showed the feasibility of the CHW training in this population. Adaptations were needed to make the CHW training more accessible for trainees who communicate in ASL. Solely adding closed captioning would not meet the needs of people who primarily communicate using ASL. Diabetes CHW trainings should be delivered in ASL for more effective communication and additional time to ensure DHH culture-appropriate communication and learning experiences.