a Department of Psychiatry , University of Massachusetts Medical School , Worcester , Massachusetts , USA.
Subst Abus. 2018;39(3):390-397. doi: 10.1080/08897077.2018.1442383. Epub 2018 Apr 5.
Within the field of behavioral health research, one of the most understudied populations is the US deaf and hard-of-hearing (D/HH) population-a diverse group of individuals with hearing loss that have varied language and communication preferences, community affiliations, and sociocultural norms. Recent research identified concerning behavioral health disparities experienced by the D/HH population; yet, little research has been conducted to extend these findings to the topic of substance use disorder.
To begin to fill this gap, the authors conducted a secondary analysis of data from the 2013-2014 administration of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, comparing alcohol and drug use between participants based on their reported hearing status, i.e., D/HH or hearing.
Findings suggest that the overall lifetime prevalence of alcohol and drug use does not differ based on hearing status, and that D/HH and hearing adolescents begin using cannabis on a similar timeline. However, findings also revealed that D/HH respondents were more likely to have been regular cannabis users and heavy alcohol users than hearing respondents. In other words, when D/HH individuals use substances, they tend to be heavy users.
These findings stress the importance of directing resources to the prevention and treatment of heavy alcohol use in the D/HH population, given that binge drinking is associated with a number of health problems and social consequences. Additionally, the continuation of this empirical work is rather urgent given recent legislative changes regarding cannabis use. D/HH individuals possess a number of risk factors for substance use disorder and, as such, may be more greatly impacted by these legislative changes than individuals from the general US population. It is imperative that this impact be captured by future research efforts in order to inform the development of prevention and intervention efforts for the traditionally underserved D/HH population.
在行为健康研究领域，研究最少的人群之一是美国聋人和重听（D/HH）人群——这是一个具有听力损失的多样化群体，他们的语言和交流偏好、社区关系和社会文化规范各不相同。最近的研究发现 D/HH 人群存在令人担忧的行为健康差距；然而，很少有研究将这些发现扩展到物质使用障碍这一主题。
为了填补这一空白，作者对 2013-2014 年国家健康和营养检查调查的数据分析进行了二次分析，根据参与者报告的听力状况（即 D/HH 或听力正常）比较了他们的酒精和药物使用情况。
研究结果表明，基于听力状况，终生酒精和药物使用的总体患病率没有差异，而且 D/HH 和听力正常的青少年开始使用大麻的时间相似。然而，研究结果还表明，与听力正常的受访者相比，D/HH 受访者更有可能成为经常使用大麻和大量饮酒者。换句话说，当 D/HH 个体使用物质时，他们往往是重度使用者。
这些发现强调了将资源用于预防和治疗 D/HH 人群中大量饮酒的重要性，因为狂饮与许多健康问题和社会后果有关。此外，鉴于最近关于大麻使用的立法变化，继续进行这项实证工作非常紧迫。D/HH 个体具有许多物质使用障碍的风险因素，因此，与来自美国普通人群的个体相比，他们可能会受到这些立法变化的更大影响。未来的研究工作必须捕捉到这一影响，以便为传统上服务不足的 D/HH 人群制定预防和干预措施提供信息。
