MEASURING HIV/AIDS KNOWLEDGE AMONG THE DEAF

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This Phase II SBIR application proposes to use Interactive Video Questionnaire technology to interview individuals who are deaf about their HIV/AIDS knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors using a sign language questionnaire to be self-administered on laptop computer. In order to meet the linguistic and cultural needs of the deaf population who use American Sign Language (ASL) as their primary communication modality, survey options will include: standard ASL, and highly contextualized ASL (each with optional captioning), and a captions-only version. Building on translation work that began in Phase I (using a bilingual translation team) and former related research, we will translate 200 HIV/AIDS related items, videotape these and digitize them for use on 12 laptop computers. The survey will then be administered to 1000 individuals who are deaf.