Preventing health problems that disrupt community living: A health promotion needs assessment.

People with physical disabilities experience health disparities and poor health outcomes that endanger community living and participation, and sometimes contribute to institutionalization. Centers for Independent Living (CILs) provide vital services to assist consumers with disabilities in achieving and maintaining community living; these organizations could be trusted sources in providing targeted health information. As first steps in devising a Health Promotion Assistance Tool for CIL staff to use with consumers, this project conducted a Needs Assessment study to collect feedback on what information would be most useful.

Research contributions and implications.

Distinguishing and characterizing the terms "chronic conditions" and "disability" is important to the quality of public health research. Research has documented that people with disabilities experience higher prevalences of chronic conditions than the general population; however, these differences are rarely attributable to the pre-existing disability, and instead likely stem from preventable environmental factors. In this paper we describe contributions from the research as well as the need for a paradigm shift to effectively address the unique public health needs of people with disabilities.

Exercise for everyone: a randomized controlled trial of project workout on wheels in promoting exercise among wheelchair users.

Objective: To compare the effectiveness of 2 home-based behavioral interventions for wheelchair users to promote exercise adoption and maintenance over 12 months.

Design: Randomized controlled trial, with participants stratified into groups based on disability type (stable, episodic, progressive) and support partner availability.

Setting: Exercise occurred in participant-preferred locations (eg, home, recreation center), with physiological data collected at a university-based exercise laboratory.

Truth be told: evidence of wheelchair users' accuracy in reporting their height and weight.

Objectives: To examine whether wheelchair users' self-reports of height and weight differed significantly from direct measurements and whether weight category classifications differed substantially when based on self-reported or measured values.

Design: Single group, cross-sectional analysis. Analyses included paired t tests, chi-square test, analysis of variance, and Bland-Altman agreement analyses.

An exercise trial for wheelchair users: project workout on wheels.

There is growing interest in promoting health for people with disabilities, yet evidence regarding community-based interventions is sparse. This paper describes the design details of a randomized controlled trial (RCT) that will test the effectiveness of a multi-component behaviorally based, intervention to promote exercise adoption (over 6 months) and maintenance (up to one year) among wheelchair users and includes descriptive data on participant characteristics at baseline. Participants were randomly assigned to either a staff-supported intervention group or a self-guided comparison group.

Measuring height without a stadiometer: empirical investigation of four height estimates among wheelchair users.

Objective: : This study aimed to compare four methods of measuring or estimating height among wheelchair users, to determine whether these methods result in significantly different estimates, and to determine which method is most accurate.

Design: : Height data were obtained for 141 wheelchair users. Height estimates included asking for self-report and measuring recumbent length, knee height, and armspan.

Recruitment issues in a randomized controlled exercise trial targeting wheelchair users.

This paper describes recruitment challenges and lessons learned in conducting a randomized controlled exercise trial in the absence of direct access to a clinical population. One-hundred thirty-five wheelchair users were enrolled in a home and community-based intervention to promote exercise adoption and maintenance. Over 44 months of recruitment, 355 individuals inquired about the study and 323 completed the screening process.