Abstract
Access to healthcare depends on cost, physical accessibility, social barriers, and patient satisfaction, as well as on availability of care. Available evidence suggests that lower rates of healthcare access and higher rates of delay and unmmet need are seen in two groups: Adults over 65, and younger deaf adults. According to 2010 census data, the fastest growing age group is adults 65 and older, and yet there exists a gap in the literature about healthcare access in the group of adults that are both geriatric and deaf. Since lower access to preventative and regular healthcare is associated with increased hospitalizations, worse overall health, and increased healthcare costs, addressing this knowledge gap could help to mitigate such negative outcomes. Using the BRFSS dataset from the CDC, we examined healthcare access by age and self-reported deafness. Geriatric patients are about half as likely as young adults to have a delay in getting medical care (OR=.51), while deaf patients are nearly twice as likely as hearing patients to have a delay (OR=1.7). The interactive effect was unexpected, however; the delay in healthcare access is more significant for younger adult deaf patients than for geriatric deaf patients, and for both deaf and hearing adults, the difference in delay of care between younger and geriatric patients is significant. In this American population, younger adults who are deaf (n=1,758) are at a higher risk of delaying healthcare than either their hearing (n=50,520) or geriatric (n=2,850) counterparts.