Assessing Public And Coastal Recreational Spaces For Individuals With Disabilities

The Americans with Disability Act (ADA) was introduced in 1990 and established a baseline for accessibility for all in public spaces. There have been revisions to the ADA as additional concerns have emerged. Public spaces for people living with disabilities are challenging especially in nature (walking trails, parks, marinas, beaches, etc.). PURPOSE: The authors developed and evaluated the Get FIT Inclusivity Scorecard (GFIS). The GFIS is designed for use by site managers, business owners and recreational areas to help them identify barriers to access for people with disabilities. The results of the GFIS also help link them to resources for improving accessibility for individuals living with disabilities and their caregivers. The GFIS is organized into five categories; 1. Accessible approach and entrance, 2. Access to services, goods and support, 3. Access to restrooms, 4. Approachability of staff and 5. Website accessibility. METHODS: Over the course of 6 months, researchers independently coded 76 public and coastal recreational spaces located in New Jersey using the GFIS. Data was converted to SPSS and descriptive statistics were run to determine scores for each of the three areas, along with total score for each space. Scores were grouped as low, middle or high range. RESULTS: The current study used the GFIS to evaluate 76 public spaces. From a total score of 215, the GFIS was subdivided into high levels (145-215), moderate level (73-144) and low level (0-72). Eight sites were considered at a high level of accessibility, 48 sites were moderate level, and 20 sites were low level. Quantitative scores were then combined with qualitative description of each of the public spaces to get a clearer sense of commonalities among sites. Specifically, to identify the similarities between the presence or absence of certain aspects of the sites in each of the three ranges (low, middle and high). CONCLUSIONS: Self-assessment of public and coastal recreational spaces will provide insight to owners and staff about current accessibility issues without the stress of judgement from others. A toolkit has also been developed as a resource to revise the spaces to improve access for those with disabilities. Inclusivity Healthy Communities grant from the Division of Disability Services, NJ.