Brief ReportVisitability surveillance, prevalence, and correlates in Florida
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
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Cited by (3)
Home Modification Assessments for Accessibility and Aesthetics: A Rapid Review
2021, Health Environments Research and Design JournalLiving Independently: Exploring the Experiences of Visually Impaired People Living in Age-Related and Lifetime Housing Through Qualitative Synthesis
2018, Health Environments Research and Design Journal
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.