Map team members have been busy writing grants, working with participants, analyzing data and much more! The following updates were collected from MAP team members in February 2024. Read on about the projects below to learn more about what the teams have been working on over the past few months.
Active Transportation Policy Analysis Project
The paper has been submitted to Disability Policy Journal and three infographics have been published on the website.
A community-based system for sharing Recreational Assistive Devices (RAD)
The first phase, aiming to understand the challenges and needs of individuals with mobility impairments for participating in outdoor recreational activities, is in progress. We have recruited 21 participants with spinal cord injury and other mobility impairments and 15 participants with lower limb loss for this project. Currently, we are analyzing the data. We expect the soft launch of the RAD gearbox on Vancouver Island in April 2024.
Access to Fly: Development of user-based recommendations to support air travel for people with SCI
Access to Fly Submitted to IRB at UIC, and will be completed at UBC too. The Next step is to reach out to airline companies and organize the first team meeting.
Identification of facilitators and barriers to the use of adapted public transport by eligible persons accompanied by a child aged 5 or under
The research project aims to collect more data to better understand the reality of paratransit users when accompanied by a child 5 years of age or younger. The partners, Ex aequo, RUTA Montréal, Parents Plus Clinique and the research team are collaborating closely to facilitate data collection and to show results that users will relate to. The phase 1, an online survey, is currently active and the Phase 2, focus groups interviews, will start in Spring 2024. An infographic was created to display preliminary survey results.
Improving Wayfinding Skills Among People with Disabilities
Two MITACS students are joining the project for summer 2024 to collaborate on phase two of the project. In phase one (summer 2023) we completed 18 semi-structured interviews about mobility device users wayfinding experiences to understand challenges and facilitators. In Summer 2024 we will work with participants to develop the content of a way finding training intervention. We have submitted an LOI to the Nielsen Foundation for funding of mixed methods feasibility study to evaluate the intervention.
Inclusive Airports: Toward inclusive accessibility in Canadian airports
Regarding the Inclusive Airport project, which aims to make recommendations to promote the inclusion of people with disabilities in Canadian airports. The first exploratory stage (scope review) is in the final stages of publication. Of the three airports targeted for data collection (Quebec City, Calgary and Toronto), we have recently completed data collection at Quebec City airport. We are now preparing for the next stage: data collection at Calgary airport, starting at the end of April, and in Toronto in November.
iPASS-âge. Incendies : Prévention, Accessibilité et Sécurité pour les personneS âgées
The training for seniors has been improved following feedback from a group of seniors and thanks to the collaboration of the RISC center. A web version of the training is now being created. We will soon be training seniors to hold the training in residences. Regarding the serious games, we’ve been in touch with residences that can find us participants to try out the game.
Project Sidewalk
In recent months, our focus has been on data visualization within Project Sidewalk through the utilization of GIS. Additionally, we conducted meetings with COB city staff to provide training sessions on how to collect data on sidewalk accessibility using Project Sidewalk platform. A grant proposal (in collaboration with CIL) has been submitted to get additional funding for community engaged data collection and knowledge mobilization session.
Additional update March 2nd: The team received SSHRC funding for a partnership grant.
Training and Familiarization with the Use of Public Transport (SAMI)
On January 7, 2024, Claudel published an article related to the first objective of his thesis project. The reference is as follows:
Mwaka, C. R., Best, K. L., Cunningham, C., Gagnon, M., & Routhier, F. (2023). Barriers and facilitators of public transport use among people with disabilities: a scoping review. Frontiers in Rehabilitation Sciences, 4.
On January 31 of the same year, Claudel also submitted for publication another manuscript related to the second objective of his thesis project. The reference of this manuscript is as follows
Claudel R. Mwaka; Krista L. Best; Martine Gagnon; François Routhier. Influence of public transport training for people with disabilities: Protocol for a systematic review. Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives. [Submission date : Jan 31, 2024]
Walkability/Wheelability Audit in Neighbourhoods (SWAN) Tool Development for People with Sensory and Cognitive Disabilities
Data collection completed (in five municipalities: Vancouver, North Vancouver, Richmond, Burnaby and Surrey):
- MAT users (SWAN Mobility): 24 participants
- SWAN Vision: 10 participants (Tentative plan -collect additional data with 2-4 more participants)
- cSWAN Dementia (MCI and early stage of dementia): 10 participants
- SWAN Hearing: 10 participants.
- Additionally, we are also collecting SWAN data on older adults from two ethnic groups: SWAN Chinese: 10 participants (Cantonese and Mandarin speaking) from Richmond, Burnaby and Vancouver in complete. We are translating the tool into Farsi (Persian) and we will collect data with Persian-speaking older adults in North Vancouver and Burnaby in Apr. and May 2024.
- Currently, we are in the final stages of data analysis of both qualitative and quantitative data across the completed SWAN streams. Knowledge mobilization has been ongoing in our project as we a following an integrated KM framework. Currently, as our data collection is coming to end for this phase of the project, we have started end-of-project knowledge mobilization (KM) activities.
SWAN KM: The goal of knowledge mobilization activities in the SWAN project is to disseminate research findings to different stakeholders and foster collaboration between academia and community partners. Following is a list of the KM activities we have engaged in and plan to engage in the in Spring and Summer of 2024.
1) Report to specific municipalities in Metro Vancouver to inform policy and practice.
a) Reported on SWAN Dementia findings to City of Richmond. Preparing report for all streams of data collection for Richmond. Target to complete report: End of Spring 2024
b) Prepared and submitted report on findings from all streams for City of Burnaby.
c) Under preparation report for City of Vancouver.
d) We have limited data from City of Surrey, so currently not preparing any report for them.
e) We will prepare report for City of North Van. after the data collection and analysis is completed for the Persian speaking older adults.
2) Video Production (digital story-telling): Received funding from Community Engaged Research Initiative (CERI) at SFU and and FASS Kickstarter Seed Grant [in collaboration with Civic Innovation Lab (CIL)] to develop a video City of Burnaby findings. This video will complement the ‘On the Move’ video series developed previously for the Cities of Vancouver, North Vancouver and New Westminster. After the video production is completed in early Summer 2024, this knowledge mobilization tool will be used in engagement sessions with City of Burnaby citizens and community organizations in the form of a community forum.
3) We did a presentation on the community-engaged research and knowledge mobilization aspects of the MAP-SWAN project at SFU’s MobilizeU workshop in February 2024. This presentation was done jointly with lived expertise partner Heather McCain.
4) Presentation of findings based on SWAN data was done to the Access Advisory Committee at COB.
5) Abstracts submitted for conference presentations: a) Environment Design Research Association (EDRA) Annual conference in Portland, OR (June, 2024); b) Abstract submission to Gerontological Society of America (GSA) Annual conference in Seattle, WA (Nov. 2024).
6) Journal articles published and under preparation: Scoping review on built environment and vision related disability titled Influence of the built environment on community mobility of people living with visual disabilities: A scoping review (Setharaman et al., 2024) was published in Urban, Planning and Transport Research. The SWAN Protocol paper is under preparation will be submitted to the Social Science Protocols in March 2024. The SWAN validity and reliability paper under development will be submitted to the special issue of the journal “Disabilities” at the end of March. These KM activities collectively reflect a strategic and comprehensive approach to knowledge mobilization, encompassing various forms of engagement and dissemination to maximize impact and relevance in both academic and practical domains.
7) Special Topics Course: GERO 840: Developing Inclusive Urban Streetscape is being offered in Gerontology as a graduate course. Three of our MAP-SFU team RAs are taking this course. It is an experiential learning based applied course in collaboration with the City of Vancouver and City Studio. This course draws from SWAN findings in City of Vancouver to develop a report on sidewalk rehabilitation to foster mobility for diverse groups of residents in the City of Vancouver.
Wheeled Device and Adaptive Cycle Users’ Mobility Experiences with Cycling Infrastructure
We have completed coding the 31 semi-structured interviews and developed qualitative themes. We are going to start writing a qualitative manuscript and are collaborating with Alfiya Battalova. We are going to submit our qualitative findings to the INCREASE BC conference. We have almost completed summarizing our participant recommendations document that we plan to share with our community and municipal partners. We are beginning to analyze the results from our general public survey.