Promoting Health Equity for People with Communication Disabilities

Description: People with communication disabilities have worse health and healthcare outcomes than those who do not. Lack of effective communication access contributes to these disparities. Healthcare information must be usable for people with communication disabilities, so they have equitable opportunities to make well-informed decisions and be as healthy as possible. Equipping patients and healthcare providers to meet communication-access needs is essential for improving health literacy. To that end, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association has a new ”Better Health Starts With Effective Communication” initiative. This session outlines its ACCESS framework to help participants remove communication barriers and advance health equity for all.

Objectives:

1. Identify common barriers people with communication disabilities face when accessing health care information/services and their potential consequences

2. Describe at least 4 methods for providing health information/services to people with communication disabilities that support effective communication using ASHA's ACCESS framework

3. Create an action plan to build their skills as effective communicators of health information to people with communication disabilities