The conditions in the places where people live, work, and socialize have a powerful effect on health. For people with spinal cord injury (SCI), community conditions can affect employment opportunities, healthcare access, and independent living. Unfortunately, many community places remain inaccessible, placing people with SCI at risk for poor outcomes. The goal of this five-year multisite collaborative project is to build the research infrastructure needed to generate actionable information about how communities live shape disability. This information will inform ongoing policy efforts to maintain the hard-fought gains for social inclusion for people with disabilities.
The objectives are: 1) to improve the capacity of the national SCI Model Systems (SCIMS) database to conduct ongoing research in geographic disparities in outcomes (the SCIMS-CDF); 2) to generate robust estimates of geographic, racial/ethnic, and rural-urban health disparities; and 3) to identify the processes that shape health disparities by engaging with people with SCI as they navigate community places using Smartphones and wearable technology.
Anticipated outcomes include: 1) a database resource that will improve the surveillance of the needs of the SCI population conducted by the SCIMS program; and 2) new knowledge about patterns of disparities and the role of environmental factors.
Products of this research will include the SCIMS-CDF database. The utilization of the SCIMS-CDF will produce new knowledge about patterns of disparities after SCI. Combined with the information gained directly from consumers about environmental barriers encountered in daily life, this information will help rehabilitation professionals and policy makers determine where to target resources to improve the lives of people with SCI: towards disadvantaged groups, disadvantaged communities, or both.
