The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA

Abstract #42562

Stephen French Gilson, PhD, School of Social Work, University of Maine, 5770 Annex C, Orono, ME 04469, 207-581-2409, stephen_gilson@umit.maine.edu and Elizabeth DePoy, PhD, Center for Community Inclusion and School of Social Work, University of Maine, 5717 Corbett Hall, Orono, ME 04469.

As the field of disability studies grows, multiple and competing definitions of disability have been posited. While intellectually rich, the discourse is confusing in informing public health efforts for individuals and groups with disabling conditions. In this session we suggest a new conceptualization of disability that is embedded within a larger framework of human activity and is designed to provide clarity for research and public health programs. The activity legitimacy theory distinguishes and builds on current description and explanation of disability, locating multiple perspectives about human activity and limitation within an explanatory and value context. Three dimensions comprise the framework. The descriptive dimension is merely a statement of what one does and does not do. The explanatory dimension of the model examines the reasons why one is doing or not doing. Included in this dimension are considerations that have been advanced as models of disability in and of themselves, such as medical/diagnostic, social, and economic explanations for activity or curtailment thereof. The third dimension of legitimacy is the value element of the framework in which the reasons that individuals do or do not do are determined, within diverse contexts, as legitimately disabling or not. The presentation will begin with a critical discussion of the model followed by exemplars that illuminate the use of the model in public health.

Learning Objectives:

• Objectives
• 1. examine how the debate about current models of disability emerges from an unclear distinction between description and explanation;
• 2. critically discuss the activitiy-legitimacy approach to understanding disability within the context of human activity
• 3. examine how the value context of medical, political, social, economic and cultural systems "bestows" legitimate disability status on human activity and limitation;
• 4. analyze the pubic health consequences of possessing or not possessing disability status in multiple contexts;
• 5. analyze the research and practice implications of the theory.

Keywords: Disability, Theory

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.