The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA

Abstract #69303

Elizabeth J. E. Aigbe, MS¹, Susan Kinne, PhD², Donald L Patrick, PhD, MSPH³, Allen Cheadle, PhD⁴, Todd C. Edwards, PhD³, Carol Baker, MC⁵, and Shelley Lawson, MPA⁶. (1) Center for Disability Policy & Research, University of Washington, 146 North Canal Street, Suite 313, Seattle, WA 98103, 206-616-1015, bedinger@u.washington.edu, (2) Center for Disability Policy and Research, University of Washington, 146 N Canal Street #313, Seattle, WA 98103, (3) Center for Disability Policy and Research/Seattle Quality of Life Group, University of Washington, 146 N Canal Street #313, Seattle, WA 98103, (4) Department of Health Services, University of Washington, 146 N. Canal St., Suite 300, Box 358853, Seattle, WA 98195, (5) The Health Improvement Partnership, 421 West Riverside, Suite 353, Spokane, WA 99201, (6) Epidemiology, Planning and Evaluation, Public Health--Seattle & King County, 999 Third Avenue, #1200, Seattle, WA 98104

As part of a research project on measurement of neighborhood accessibility, key informants with disabilities identified the domains important to access (housing, transportation, grocery stores, healthcare facilities) as well as the common barriers to access within each of them. To understand the relative importance of barriers to access within these domains, project staff discussed them with 6 focus groups of people with disabilities recruited through disability organizations in Seattle and Spokane, Washington. Each city had one group each for adults with mobility impairments, with hearing limitation, and with vision limitations. Focus group participants selected the ten barriers in each domain that seemed most important to them, then ranked these ten barriers in order of importance. Group members suggested additional barriers. Rankings were compared for consistency across impairment type and city using Spearman’s correlation coefficient. The two groups of people with mobility limitations gave consistent importance ranks to aspects of housing, transportation, grocery stores and health care facilities. People with vision and hearing limitation chose different barriers as important, and these groups in the two cities differed on their rankings of barrier importance. The heterogeneity of rankings of access barriers by impairment confirmed the theory that to be useful and valid, measures of neighborhood accessibility should be presented as a matrix, showing barriers that affect people with different impairments and an assessment of the presence of each in that neighborhood. This would permit people with differing or multiple impairments, different abilities and different priorities to judge a neighborhood’s accessibility for themselves.

Learning Objectives:

• At the conclusion of this session, the participant will be able to:
• 1. Describe the procedure for assessing the most important domains to access as well as the barriers to access within those domains for people with sensory and mobility limitations.
• 2. List the ten most important criteria in picking a neighborhood and a place to live for people with mobility and sensory limitations.
• 3. Discuss reasons for variation between rankings of those with different types of disability and implications for data collection efforts.

Keywords: Access, Disability

Related Web page: depts.washington.edu/caws/

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.