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Cultural Adaptation of a Community-Based Hearing Health Intervention for Korean American Older Adults with Hearing Loss

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Abstract

Although hearing loss is known to be associated with many adverse health outcomes in older adults, current hearing healthcare remains expensive and inaccessible to most ethnic minorities in the US. We aim to adapt an affordable, community-based hearing intervention to older Korean Americans (KAs), describe the cultural adaption process, and report pilot trial outcomes. We undertook the first four stages of Barrera & Castro’s cultural adaptation framework: information gathering, preliminary adaptation design, adaptation test, and adaptation refinement in 15 older KAs with hearing loss and 15 of their communication partners. We developed a culturally adapted intervention consisting of provision of an affordable listening device and aural rehabilitative training. Six weeks post-intervention, participants’ mean hearing handicap score (range: 0–40) reduced from 15.7 to 6.4. Communication partners demonstrated improved social-emotional function. Post-intervention focus group revealed increased hearing benefit, confidence in hearing health navigation, and awareness in hearing health among study participants. The adapted intervention was well-accepted and feasible among older KAs. This study is the first to report the cultural adaptation process of a hearing care model into older KAs and its methodology may be applied to other minority groups.

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Acknowledgements

We thank our program participants for taking the time to share their experiences.

Funding

This manuscript was supported in part by NIH K23 DC011279 (FRL), R33DC015062 (FRL), T32 DC000027 (CLN), the Eleanor Schwartz Charitable Foundation (FRL), a Triological Society/American College of Surgeons Clinician Scientist Award (FRL) and the Johns Hopkins Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (ICTR) which is funded in part by NIH TL1 TR001078 (JSC) from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS). Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official view of the Johns Hopkins ICTR, NCATS or NIH.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery, Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California, California, Los Angeles, USA

    Janet S. Choi

  2. Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Kyoo S. Shim

  3. Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Na E. Shin

  4. Department of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Carrie L. Nieman

  5. Center on Aging and Health, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Carrie L. Nieman & Sara K. Mamo

  6. Department of Community-Public Health, School of Nursing, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Hae-Ra Han

  7. Departments of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery, Geriatric Medicine, Mental Health and Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Frank R. Lin

  8. Johns Hopkins Center on Aging & Health, 2024 E. Monument St, Suite 2-700, Baltimore, MD, 21205, USA

    Frank R. Lin

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  1. Janet S. Choi
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  2. Kyoo S. Shim
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Correspondence to Frank R. Lin.

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FRL reimbursed travel to meetings from Cochlear Ltd. and speaker honoraria from Triton Hearing and Caption Call. FRL reports being the director of the Johns Hopkins Cochlear Center for Hearing and Public Health that is funded in part by a philanthropic gift from Cochlear Ltd. to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. FRL reports being a board member of AccessHEARS and the Health Sciences Policy Board at the National Academies. SKM reports have meeting expenses paid for by the Oticon Foundation.

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Choi, J.S., Shim, K.S., Shin, N.E. et al. Cultural Adaptation of a Community-Based Hearing Health Intervention for Korean American Older Adults with Hearing Loss. J Cross Cult Gerontol 34, 223–243 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10823-019-09376-6

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