This paper presents results from 2 years' experience in attempting to measure the extent of substance abuse within the deaf community, and preliminary findings of substance abuse incidence and prevalence from that effort. It also describes a new technology, the Interactive Video-Questionnaire, developed to interview deaf persons using questionnaires in multi-media format that are manually signed on a computer screen in American Sign Language and Signed English, as well as mouthed in Speechreading—all of which are simultaneously captioned in English text with Touchscreen™ input and automatic data capture. This technology emerged as one product of a Small Business Innovative Research grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse designed to overcome the difficulties associated with surveying the deaf population and specifically targeted at addressing the extent of substance abuse among the deaf populations in New York and New Jersey.
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