Deaf People

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The report explains what happens with deaf people in their social life.

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Why Deaf People Have Poorer Health than the Rest of the
Population
It is a matter of fact that disable people have to face many difficulties
in life. It is a situation prevailing in every part of the world. In 2012 the
Lancet published medical evidence which shocked the deaf community, by
confirming that ‘Deafness might damage your health’. Dr Johannes Fellinger,
from the Heath Centre for the Deaf at the Hospital of St. John of God in Linz,
Austria, argues that there is considerable health inequality between Deaf and
hearing people (Fellinger, et al., 2012). Although it is proven from this study
that deaf people lag behind in health from hearing people but they are in
such condition because of limited access to services, lack of social
communications, lack of parental care and some economic factors.
Firstly, Deaf people are the victim of diabetes, heart diseases and
some others proportionately more than the hearing people because of
limited access to health services (Emond, 2015). Their first language is sign
language which is no matter cannot be understood by all doctors and
physicians. The best these doctors can do is that they can hire an illustrator
which could make deaf people understand that what the doctor is saying and
how to use medicines, but this facility cannot be afforded by every doctor as
it ultimately burdens the pocket of the patient. Because of this situation at
hospitals and clinics the deaf people are limited to health facilities and their
diseases are not cured properly which cannot be attributed to their loss of
hearing. Moreover, for deaf people there is lack of health care information
available for sign language user at internet and other places through which
they can cure themselves (Anon., 2009). According to the published research
findings, deaf study participants had a problem of high blood pressure, which
leads to hypertension (Fellinger, et al., 2012). Further, half of the Deaf
participants with heart disease didn’t appear to be receiving proper
treatment, and one-third of deaf participants had high cholesterol, but their
treatment rates were 50% lower than rates among the general population.
The researchers reported that the deaf patient with similar level of diabetes
were found their disease growing more than the hearing people because of
unawareness of the disease and poor control of diabetes (Anon., 2015). The
hypertension leads to other diseases and make the situation worsen for deaf
people. The poor health facilities for deaf people are worse in undeveloped
countries than in developed countries (Jokinen, n.d.). One of the main reason
for their condition is may be the lack of health facilities even for normal
people in these countries. When government is unable to fulfill the health
needs of normal people than how can they think of providing these facilities
for deaf people. So, natural hearing problem is not the only problem for
worse health condition for deaf people but also the lack of health facilities

and poor health control because of unawareness of different diseases leads
to poorer health of these people.
Secondly, deaf people are unable to socialize with other people easily.
As it was also described in the last paragraph that sign language is the first
medium to communicate for them which is known by a very less proportion
of the people in the society so everyone cannot communicate with them
easily. This lack of communication leads to frustration, loneliness and some
kind of inferiority complex in these people which itself is a social disease
(Anon., 2009). They feel separate even in the most crowded places whether
it is a college, school or some picnic place. First of all there are some limited
allotted seat for these people in normal colleges and after all process if they
are lucky enough to get into a prestigious institution then they are unable to
understand teachers’ lectures and presentation because of no use of signs in
their language. It leads to poor academic performance. There are some
colleges and schools available for these people where they are taught
according to how they understand the thing but level of education there is
not matched by the other institution who they have to compete in future life
(Anon., n.d.). Also, when these special people are recruited by some of the
companies because of their corporate social responsibility, these people are
unable to perform well because of their poor communications skills and also
they are not able to get good compensation of their work. Although these
people are more hardworking than the other people but still they are unable
to get good promotion at workplaces because of their poor socializing skills.
So, we can say that lack of communication is also a cause of poor condition
of deaf people.
Thirdly, according to stats 96% of the births of deaf children happen to
normal hearing parents who don’t know what are the common difficulties
faced by deaf people (Smith & Chin, n.d.). A study of deaf children of age
between 10 to 16 years old shows that parents underestimate that how hard
it is for the deaf people to hear (Hall, n.d.). Deaf children feel like a minority
in a family because of the negative behavior of their parents or inability of
their parent to behave in a proper manner with them. When deaf children
face difficulties in communication with their parents their childhood growth
suffers which suffers their overall mental and physical growth. Parents are
unable to communicate them well which creates a feeling of loneliness in
them and it also become a reason of them to not able to socialize with other
people as well. They feel left out in the society and frustration of it leads
them to hypertension, high blood pressure and other diseases. Not only
parents but also the siblings of these deaf children who are normal hearing
people can affect their condition. An affectionate sibling can have a positive
impact on their health and a sibling which does not try to understand their
situation can leads to worsen their situation (Antonopoulou, 2012). It is also

seen that parents are more inclined to their normal children when one of
their children is deaf which creates a kind of inferiority complex in these
children and it has negative impact on their health (DeVault, 2015).
Moreover, when they see their siblings prosper in life with the same effort as
they were putting in their academics they tend to believe that deafness is
the reason of them not getting what they might have got in its absence and
they give up. A study’s results show that deaf children find more happiness
and comfort with other deaf people and with the affection of their family
member (Hall, n.d.). It emphasizes the importance of parents and other
family members in their physical and metal growth. It is also confirmed from
this study that not only effective counselling of these children is necessary
for their mental growth but also proper training of their parents and teachers
is also necessary for their good health care and early growth. Without this it
impossible to inculcate good communication qualities in them. So, parental
care and affection as well as the behavior of their sibling affect the early
growth of deaf children which ultimately affects their mental and physical
health.
Moreover, as it is supported by Fellinger’s study that deaf people are
found more of the victim of sexual abuse. “In a large Norwegian deaf
population, rates of sexual abuse were twice as high for girls, and three
times higher for boys, than they were in a Norwegian comparison
group. Intercourse during childhood was four times more frequent in the deaf
group than in controls” (Fellinger, et al., 2012). This kind of social behavior
can also lead to adverse mental disorder in early stages of life which can be
a reason of their poor health condition than the normal people. So, the
community, government and other private organizations should protect the
rights of these people as they do not have much bigger voice in the society
so when this sort of things happen to these people then it is our usual
experience that most of the community is quite unaware of it. There is a dire
need for better social security of these people for which each person should
play his role as it is not only the problem of these people but also the
problem of the whole human race.
Lastly, there are some economic factors associated with the poor
health of the deaf people. First of all they are not given the same social
status as enjoyed by other people in the society. The situation is worse in the
underdeveloped countries of south Asia and some African countries where
deaf and other disabled people are not given the basic rights in the society.
For example they are not given the basic right of education by not giving
them basic schooling facility (Anon., 2015). If schooling facility is provided
then basic facilities available there are not enough to cater to the needs of
these special people as it requires special skills for teachers to teach them
and also special infrastructure in class room and other basic things to teach

them appropriately. There is only a small proportion of people who succeed
in completing their school education (Willoughby, 2011). After completing
school education there is a lot of difficulties in getting admission into
colleges as described in the second paragraph they have limited seat for
deaf and disable people and if somehow a deaf person is able to get
admission in good college then the academic structure designed there is for
normal people which does not cater to the needs of these disable people.
Moreover, there are fierce competition when they have to apply for job.
There is only a handful of those companies who adjust these people in the
workplace but still they cannot get the competitive salaries as other people
get at the same position and because of lack of communication skills they
cannot get good promotion and cannot prosper in their lives (Anon., n.d.). It
leads to psychological disorder seeing their peers getting good salaries and
well promotion than them. It may be a cause of high blood pressure, diabetes
and hypertension in these people. So, economic factors like basic schooling
and job environment also affect the condition of deaf people.
In conclusion, Fellinger’s study was mainly based on some experiments
and statistical analysis of the deaf people of different communities in which
he described that deaf people have more diseases like elevated cholesterol,
overweight, hypertension, diabetes, heart diseases, gastrointestinal disorder,
and respiratory tract diseases than the normal people. But, the social
determinants causing these diseases are because of the lack of health
services for them, poor communication and socializing skills, inappropriate
parental and family care, sexual abuses and because of some economic
causes. They may not be poor in health from normal people merely because
they do not have hearing capabilities. We can make their situation better by
providing them with better health services, by proper teaching of parents as
well as teachers as how to teach these people, by providing them with basic
needs of life in an appropriate manner, by ensuring their social security and
giving them more opportunities to prosper in life as it is a matter of fact that
if these people cannot hear good but they surely have more visual power and
there are professions in which they can be employed better and in which
their skills can be flourished (Lewis, 2013).

Work Cited:
Anon., 2009. Loneliness or Feeling Lonely Owing to Emotional Imbalance. [Online]
Available at: http://www.charminghealth.com/applicability/loneliness.htm
[Accessed 28 4 2015].
Anon., 2009. The Current State of Health Care for People with Disabilities. [Online]
Available at: http://www.ncd.gov/publications/2009/Sept302009
[Accessed 28 4 2015].
Anon., 2015. Deaf People Lack Access to Care, Suffer Poorer Health. [Online]
Available at: http://www.hearingreview.com/2015/02/deaf-people-lack-access-caresuffer-poorer-health/
[Accessed 28 4 2015].
Anon., 2015. Deafness and hearing loss. [Online]
Available at: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs300/en/
[Accessed 28 4 2015].
Anon., n.d. Employing a Deaf or hard of hearing person. [Online]
Available at: http://www.deafiniteinterpreters.co.uk/news-events.php?NewsID=10
[Accessed 28 4 2015].

Anon., n.d. Position Statement on Schools for the Deaf. [Online]
Available at: http://nad.org/issues/education/k-12/position-statement-schools-deaf
[Accessed 28 4 2015].
Antonopoulou, K., 2012. Parenting Styles of Mothers With Deaf or Hard-of-Hearing
Children and Hearing Siblings. Oxford Journals, pp. 306-318.
DeVault, M., 2015. Mediated Communication in Context: Narrative Approaches to
Understanding Encounters between Health Care Providers and Deaf People.
Disability Studies Quarterly, Volume 31.
Emond, A., 2015. The current health of the signing Deaf community in the UK
compared with the general population: a cross-sectional study. [Online]
Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4316428/
[Accessed 28 4 2015].
Fellinger, J., Holzinger, D. & Pollard, R., 2012. Mental health of deaf people. [Online]
Available at: http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS01406736(11)61143-4/fulltext
[Accessed 28 4 2015].
Hall, W. C., n.d. Decrease of Deaf Potential in a Mainstreamed Environment. [Online]
Available at: http://www.personalityresearch.org/papers/hall.html
[Accessed 28 4 2015].
Jokinen, M., n.d. Sumission of World Organization for Deaf. [Online]
Available at: www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/disability/docs/study/WFD.doc
[Accessed 28 4 2015].
Lewis, T., 2013. Do Deaf People Really Have Superhuman Vision?. [Online]
Available at: http://www.livescience.com/41521-deaf-people-superhumansenses.html
[Accessed 28 4 2015].
Smith, S. R. & Chin, N. P., n.d. Social Determinants of Health in Deaf Communities.
[Online]
Available at: https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/NCDHR/documents/InTechSocial_determinants_of_health_in_deaf_communities.pdf
[Accessed 28 4 2015].
Willoughby, L., 2011. Sign Language Users’ Education and Employment Levels:
Keeping Pace with Changes in the General Australian Population?. Oxford Journals,
pp. 401-413.

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