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Feature Articles

Services, systems, and policies affecting community mobility for people with mobility impairments in Northern Iceland: An occupational perspective

ORCID Icon, ORCID Icon & ORCID Icon
Pages 309-321 | Accepted 16 Apr 2018, Published online: 06 Jun 2018
 

ABSTRACT

Background: Services, systems, and policies can affect what people do, including community mobility (CM), or the act of moving around within the community. People with mobility impairments meet various challenges to CM as the environment does not always accommodate their needs.

Aim: To explore, through an occupational lens, how services, systems, and policies can restrict or support CM for people with mobility impairments.

Methods: As the first phase of an exploratory case study, focus group interviews were conducted with two different groups: users of mobility devices, living in the town of Akureyri, Iceland, and people who have experience of providing or planning services for disabled people in the same area.

Results: Five themes, “Being mobile: A key to meaningful occupations”, “Users as agents in their own lives”, “Means of transportation”, “Accessibility awareness”, and “Integration of services and systems”, identify important aspects that need to be addressed to better support CM.

Conclusion: The findings suggest the need to further explore transportation service, personal assistance, and infrastructure services affecting accessibility; alongside the importance of incorporating occupational justice and rights values into policy implementation.

背景:服务、系统和政策可能会影响人们的行为,包括社区流动(CM),即在社区内出行的行为。行动不便的人遇到各种社区流动方面的挑战,因为环境并不总能满足他们的需求。

目的:从休闲角度来探索服务、系统和政策如何限制或支持行动不便人士的社区流动。

方法:作为探索性案例研究的第一阶段,焦点小组访谈针对两个不同的小组进行:居住在冰岛阿库雷里镇的流动设备使用者,以及同一地区的为残疾人提供或计划服务的人。

结果:“可移动性:有意义的休闲的关键”、“用户作为自己生活中的代理人”、“交通工具”、“便利性意识”和“服务与系统集成”这五个主题指认出需要解决的重要问题,以更好地支持CM。

结论:调查结果表明:有必要进一步探索影响便利性的运输服务、个人帮助和基础设施服务;将休闲司法和权利价值纳入政策实施是很重要的。

Antecedentes: Los servicios, los sistemas y las políticas pueden incidir en las actividades emprendidas por las personas, por ejemplo, en la movilidad comunitaria (cm), esto es, la posibilidad de desplazarse por la comunidad. Las personas que tienen impedimentos de movilidad deben enfrentar varios desafíos en ese sentido, ya que no siempre el entorno responde a sus necesidades.

Propósito: Examinar a través de una lente ocupacional cómo los servicios, los sistemas y las políticas pueden restringir o coadyuvar la cm de las personas con discapacidad motora.

Metodología: En la primera fase de un estudio de caso exploratorio se realizaron entrevistas en grupos de enfoque con dos perfiles diferentes: personas que utilizan aparatos de movilidad, habitantes de la ciudad de Akureyri, Islandia, y personas experimentadas en proporcionar o planear servicios para personas con discapacidad que habitan en la misma zona.

Resultados: En los grupos de enfoque realizados surgieron cinco temas: “Tener movilidad: factor importante para conseguir ocupaciones significativas”, “usuarios como agentes de su propia vida”, “medios de transporte”, “conciencia sobre la accesibilidad” e “integración de servicios y sistemas. Estos temas dan cuenta de aspectos importantes que deben ser abordados en aras de mejorar la cm.

Conclusión: Los hallazgos ponen en evidencia la necesidad de seguir profundizando en los servicios de transporte, la asistencia personal y los servicios de infraestructura que determinan la accesibilidad. Asimismo, es necesario tener presente la relevancia de incorporar el concepto de justicia ocupacional y los valores de los derechos humanos a la hora de implementar las políticas.

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the participants for their valuable insights into systemic factors affecting people with mobility impairment in Akureyri and express gratitude to the service users for sharing their personal experiences of daily struggles with the system. This study is part of the first author’s doctoral work, supervised by the third author.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

ORCID

Sigrún Kristín Jónasdóttir http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0726-9267

Snæfríður Þóra Egilson http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7578-5207

Jan Polgar http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0239-304X

Notes

1. The term disabled people is used throughout this text, except in quotations from others. Such terminology is frequently used within disability studies to put emphasis on how people with impairment are disabled by socio-political factors (Shakespeare, Citation2015; Stone, Citation2012).

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