Community-based health promotion programs for people with disabilities: Mapping the literature landscape

Health promotion programs for people with disabilities are in the early stages of development, and little is known about the composition of the literature on the topic. To address this need, a scoping review of the literature on community-based health promotion interventions for adults with physical, cognitive, and sensory disabilities was performed. Subject heading searches identified citations from MEDLINE, PsycInfo, and Cinahl databases for 1986 through July 2006. The search produced a total of 3987 citations, which were reviewed at the level of the abstract. English-language peer-reviewed primary literature and review articles that examined health promotion interventions among adults with disabilities were included for further review, resulting in 339 citations. The 339 abstracts were coded according to three criteria: disabling conditions of study participants, functional disabilities of study participants, and health promotion program topics. The most frequent disabling conditions observed in the identified studies were stroke (51 studies), intellectual disability (38 studies), and multiple sclerosis (34 studies). The most common functional disabilities represented were physical disabilities affecting mobility (126 studies) and acquired cognitive disabilities (115 studies), in contrast with low representation of sensory impairments (with 11 and 9 studies addressing individuals with vision and hearing impairments, respectively). The most commonly identified health promotion program topic was physical activity (135 studies). The presentation will include an overview of the coding process and results of the scoping review. Implications of this review for future health promotion studies for persons with disabilities will be discussed.