Combatting Health Disparities Among Diverse Deaf Individuals: Perspectives from Health, Psychology, and Education

Dear Colleagues,

We are currently inviting article submissions that describe innovative, multidisciplinary, and community-engaged efforts to combat the variety of health disparities that impact diverse Deaf, DeafBlind, DeafDisabled, and Hard of Hearing individuals. 

As is well known, individuals who are Deaf, DeafBlind, DeafDisabled, and Hard of Hearing experience significant health disparities compared to members of the general population. The past two decades have unearthed evidence of alarming disparities in critical domains of physical and mental health: obesity, adverse childhood experiences, trauma exposure, mental health conditions, and suicidality, among others. 

Although we do not yet fully understand the multitude of factors that contribute to these  disparities, we do know that social determinants of health play a large role. Similar to members of other sociolinguistic minority groups, Deaf, DeafBlind, DeafDisabled, and Hard of Hearing individuals experience major barriers to their meaningful access to education, employment, medical care, and mental healthcare that occur across the lifespan. 

Just as the causes of health disparities are multifactorial, prevention and intervention efforts must derive from multiple disciplines. As such, for this Special Issue, we welcome submissions from perspectives of health, psychology, and/or education. We invite you to submit original articles (both qualitative and quantitative analysis, both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies) and systematic review works focused on efforts to tackle the health disparities among Deaf, DeafBlind, DeafDisabled, and Hard of Hearing populations.

With gratitude,

Dr. Melissa L. Anderson
Dr. Alexander Wilkins
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. European Journal of Investigation in Health, Psychology and Education is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.