•The topic and public health issue: My research topic is “cardiovascular diseases (CVD) in the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHOH) communities in the United States (US)”. Often, DHOH population are excluded from surveillances (Pick, 2013), and it is questionable, what percentage of DHOH population affected by CVD due to communication barriers that increases the risk for CVD in this population. •Explain the selected topic and public health issue: Cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death in Americans (Thomas et al., 2006), and the sub-minority population of DHOH people are affected by CVD (Pick, 2013). It is estimated, $30 billion spent to treat this population (Zazove & Doukas, 1994) because barriers to communication exist,
