The Anthropometrics of Disability - Designing Accessible Communities

Several recommendations were made that related sampling to the utilization of
information from research:
• Researchers should collaborate with government funding and policy-making
agencies to identify the target populations for different types of research. It
is very important to understand that there is not one target population. Each
application of data may have a different one, e.g. young or old people,
engaged in work or recreation activities, fit or frail, etc. NIDDR and the
Access Board should play a leadership role in defining the groups that need
to be sampled and insuring the use of uniform approaches. The population of
people with disabilities is so diverse that some tacit understanding of who is
being served by research is needed in order to develop acceptable
sampling plans. Through clinical experience, review of available
demographic data and previous research, target groups can be identified
based on level of impairment, level of independence and functional
limitation. Consideration should be given as to how such target populations
should address social factors such as age and sex as well as biological and
genetic factors such as extreme stature and ethnic diversity. The target
populations should be defined in a manner that allows the application of
statistical techniques to existing demographic data in order to establish the
generalizability of findings, e.g. confidence level, power estimates.
• Agencies like the Access Board and the U.S. Department of Justice need to
specify how many of which population groups must be accommodated by a
new design that is covered by access laws and regulations. Without such
target, a manufacturer has no guidance or incentive to create compliant
products. No matter what they do, there will always be complaints that they
didn’t accommodate some group or another.
• Develop standards for different population groups, e.g. children, older
people, etc. This requires sampling for those specific groups where good
reasons exist to assume that there would be great differences in needs and
abilities that should be reflected in products and environments designed for
use primarily by these groups.
• Description of samples based on functional ability is useful for developing
performance based code requirements. Code requirements can be clearly
related to the percentage of the population that is able to perform at a
certain level on specific functional measures. The FIM score is very valuable in
this regard because of the vast amount of data available on assessments
made with the FIM instrument.
8. IMPROVING COST EFFECTIVENESS OF RESEARCH
Many of the Workshop’s participants were experienced research administrators.
Discussion of research methodology and sampling issues identified the need to study
more factors, use larger samples and improve data collection methods. This raised
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