Empowering Community Change: Strategies to create healthy communities for people with disabilities through interactive online mapping

Research has shown that social determinants of health such as poverty, poor quality of life, and low socioeconomic conditions significantly impact people with disabilities. Research has also identified a clear relationship between problems with community accessibility and incidence of secondary conditions. One of the challenges in building healthy communities for people with disabilities is the many individual barriers that people face in their community. There is a critical need to provide people with disabilities a medium for being able to quickly and efficiently access all the resources in their communities. Individuals need up-to-date accessibility information because small environmental changes can have significant effects for someone with a disability planning a trip to the gym. The Center for Health Promotion for People with Disabilities (CHP) has developed an innovative website that uses a collaborative approach to visualize the accessibility of local environments and provide a wealth of resources with a click of the mouse. Interactive mapping technologies are a perfect medium for providing this enhanced technological resource, which is capable of connecting the dots that build health communities for people with disabilities. Through open source software, maps can provide a way for individuals and communities to be involved in creating a real-time representation of their community. The website can help identify barriers and can help establish partnerships that empower community change by building off existing resources. The CHP helps communities learn how to use their interactive maps to conduct this online form of asset-based community development.