“making Sure I Have Caregivers Until My Last Breadth": The Importance of Environmental Resources and Supports Among Adults with Long-term Physical Disabilities from Underserved Communities

Research Objectives: The research explores the perceptions of adults with severe physical disabilities from low-income and racially marginalized communities regarding the structural factors influencing their access to resources essential for successful aging.

Design: Qualitative, observational using data from individual interviews and focus groups, conducted in-person and remotely.

Setting: Low-income, racially marginalized communities in Flint and Detroit, Michigan

Participants: 50 adults with severe, long-term physical disabilities

Interventions: Not Applicable

Main Outcome Measures: Themes associated with successful aging are extracted from individual narratives.

Results: The length of interviews and focus groups averaged one hour and forty minutes. Three overarching themes were identified: The first highlights the importance of caring for the physical body; the second underscores the significance of caring for one’s mental, emotional, and psychosocial health; the third undergirds the first two. It emphasizes the importance of having access to the resources that enable one to achieve the first two.

Conclusions: Findings extend current literature on successful aging by drawing linkages between it, structural violence, and structural ableism. Participants in the study recognized that enablement and ability to live and age well is the direct consequence of having access to the resources that allow one to engage in personal health behaviors and access attributes of the socio-environment that provide individuals with the capacity to care for their bodies and minds. Their denied access is a form of structural violence, “an avoidable impairment of fundamental human needs” (Galtung 1995). This study highlights the role of intersectionality and structural factors that can enable or hinder successful aging for adults with physical disabilities. It centers our attention on the inequity of access and how it can shape and solidify the systemic barriers that perpetuate oppression.

Author(s) Disclosures: None