Brief Report
Visitability surveillance, prevalence, and correlates in Florida

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dhjo.2014.07.006Get rights and content

Abstract

Background

A primary means of social connection is visiting friends and families in their homes. Visitability is designing houses in a way that enables people to visit others' homes regardless of physical limitations or use of mobility assistive devices.

Objective

The goals of this study were to develop a set of questions about visitability that could be used for surveillance and to assess the prevalence and correlates of visitability features in Florida.

Methods

We added five questions to the 2011 Florida Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (n = 12,399 respondents) and used complementary log–log regression models to estimate the prevalence ratio of each visitability feature.

Results

The prevalence of visitability features in Florida homes was high for respondents with and without disabilities, though there was variation by visitability feature. A level entrance to the home and wide doorways were present in most respondents' homes (84.9% and 86.2%, respectively), while a main floor bathroom (59.6%) and a zero-step entrance (45.4%) were reported less commonly. People with a disability were less likely to report that their own home had doorways wide enough to accommodate a wheelchair compared to people without a disability (PR = 0.87, 95% CI: 0.80–0.95). Visitability features were less common in households with lower income and also in trailers or mobile homes than in detached single-family homes.

Conclusions

The survey questions used in this study could be implemented in other states to measure and track visitability and monitor progress toward the Healthy People 2020 goal. Building or retro-fitting homes to include visitability features could increase the participation and inclusion of people with disabilities in community life.

Section snippets

Methods

In 2010, the study team, part of the Florida Office on Disability and Health, developed a set of twelve questions on the topic of visitability, including the presence of visitable features in the home and the opinions of individuals about building new homes with visitable features. These questions were piloted on the Florida Consumer Confidence Index (FCCI), a random-digit dialed telephone survey, during two months in 2010: 775 Florida adults aged 18 and over participated (see Appendix).13

Results

In 2011, there were 12,399 BRFSS respondents in Florida, all of whom were asked the series of questions on disability and visitability. A level entrance to the home and wide doorways were present in most respondents' homes (84.9% and 86.2%, respectively), while a main floor bathroom (59.6%) and a zero-step entrance (45.4%) were reported less commonly (Table 1). The majority of respondents lived in a detached, single-family home (70.8%) and most reported that they owned their home (69.6%).

In the

Discussion

The presence of visitability features in Florida homes was generally high, regardless of disability status or other demographic characteristics. These results differ from Montana's, where overall respondent-perceived visitability was low (about 20%).11 We found no evidence that people with a disability are more likely to live in a home with any given visitability feature; in fact, they appear to be less likely to live in homes with a level path to the entrance and with wide doorways than their

Conclusion

With the prevalence of disability and the demand for accessible housing projected to increase in the coming decades,6, 7 disparities in housing could result in disparities in community participation for people with disabilities. Building or retro-fitting homes to include visitability features could increase the participation and inclusion of people with disabilities in community life. We found that many Florida homes have features that make them visitable. These features vary somewhat by

References (20)

  • T.E. Seeman

    Social ties and health: the benefits of social integration

    Ann Epidemiol

    (1996)
  • I. Kawachi et al.

    Social ties and mental health

    J Urban Health

    (2001)
  • Every New Home Visitable

    (2012)
  • J. Maisel et al.

    Increasing Home Access: Designing for Visitability

    (2008)
  • The Impact of the Americans With Disabilities Act: Assessing the Progress Toward Achieving the Goals of the ADA

    (2007)
  • Committee on Disability in America, Board on Health Sciences Policy, Institute of Medicine

  • S.K. Smith et al.

    Aging and disability: Implications for the housing industry and housing policy in the United States

    J Am Plann Assoc

    (2008)
  • U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (US DHHS). Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. Healthy...
  • Codebook for the American Housing Survey, Public Use File: 1997–2011, Version 2.1

    (March 2013)
  • Current Housing Reports

    (September 2013)
There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

Conflict of interest statement: None of the authors have any conflict of interest or relevant financial interests to report.

Prior presentations and publication: This manuscript has not been published or submitted in peer-reviewed form elsewhere. We created a report for lay audiences and the Florida Department of Health using the data as part of the grant that supported the work, the CDC Disability and Health State Program. The report is available online and is cited in the manuscript. The data were presented at the annual BRFSS conference last year as a poster by co-author Bauer.

This work was supported by CDC U59DD000273-04. EMA was funded in part by the Oregon Office on Disability and Health for this research (CDC U59DD00094201). This material is the result of work supported by resources from the VA Puget Sound Health Care System, Seattle, Washington.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the Department of Veterans Affairs or the United States Government.

View full text