@Article{info:doi/10.2196/21103,
author="Paludneviciene, Raylene
and Knight, Tracy
and Firl, Gideon
and Luttrell, Kaela
and Takayama, Kota
and Kushalnagar, Poorna",
title="Perception of COVID-19 Physical Distancing Effectiveness and Contagiousness of Asymptomatic Individuals: Cross-sectional Survey of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Adults in the United States",
journal="J Med Internet Res",
year="2021",
month="Feb",
day="25",
volume="23",
number="2",
pages="e21103",
keywords="COVID-19; coronavirus; physical distancing; asymptomatic individual; social media; deaf; hard of hearing; sign language; perception; misinformation",
abstract="Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a rapid increase in the amount of information about the disease and SARS-CoV-2 on the internet. If the language used in video messages is not clear or understandable to deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) people with a high school degree or less, this can cause confusion and result in information gaps among DHH people during a health emergency. Objective: The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between DHH people's perception of the effectiveness of physical distancing and contagiousness of an asymptomatic person. Methods: This is a cross-sectional survey study on DHH people's perceptions about COVID-19 (N=475). Items pertaining to COVID-19 knowledge were administered to US deaf adults from April 17, 2020, to May 1, 2020, via a bilingual American Sign Language/English online survey platform. Results: The sample consisted of 475 DHH adults aged 18-88 years old, with 74{\%} (n=352) identifying as White and 54{\%} (n=256) as female. About 88{\%} (n=418) of the sample felt they knew most things or a lot about physical distancing. This figure dropped to 72{\%} (n=342) for the question about the effectiveness of physical distancing in reducing the spread of COVID-19 and 70{\%} (n=333) for the question about the contagiousness of an infected person without symptoms. Education and a knowledge of the effectiveness of physical distancing significantly predicted knowledge about the contagiousness of an asymptomatic individual. Race, gender, and age did not emerge as significant predictors. Conclusions: This results of this study point to the strong connection between education and coronavirus-related knowledge. Education-related disparities can be remedied by making information fully accessible and easily understood during emergencies and pandemics. ",
issn="1438-8871",
doi="10.2196/21103",
url="https://www.jmir.org/2021/2/e21103",
url="https://doi.org/10.2196/21103",
url="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33560996"
}