Community Health and Preventive Medicine Commons^™

Accessible Design In Rural Health Care: Usability Profile Of Outpatient Health Care Facilities In Rural West Virginia., Jordan E. Miller

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) became law in 1990. Since then, research has shown that people with disabilities continue to experience environmental, systematic, and structural barriers to health care. The purpose of this research is to explore the prevalence of barriers in rural West Virginia health facilities and the relationship between building characteristics (like age and purpose) and accessibility. The researcher evaluated ten rural outpatient member-sites of the West Virginia Practice-Based Research Network using a survey to understand building characteristics and a tool to measure essential features for a facility to be considered ‘usable’. Findings included a negative correlation …