Municipalities’ strategies to implement universal accessibility measures: A scoping review

Abstract

An accessible built environment is an important catalyst of participation. However, people living with disabilities face daily barriers to in their built environment. Many stakeholders are involved in the implementation of accessible built environment for all, such as municipalities. The implementation of such universal accessibility measures is therefore complex for municipal employees. Integration of such measures into regular activities requires individual (employees) and organizational (municipalities) change. Different implementation strategies are helpful to guide municipalities in the creation of tools and to facilitate the operationalization and implementation of the measures. The aim was to explore what are the implementation strategies used by municipalities to implement universal accessibility measures. To answer this question, (1) identified the different strategies used by municipalities in implementing universal accessibility measures, (2) explored the perceived influence of these strategies, and (3) identified facilitators and barriers to the use of the different strategies to implement universal accessibility measures. We conducted a scoping review following the PRISMA-SR guidelines. We analyzed the data according to the type of strategy and to the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR). Of 1328 articles identified by the search strategy, six studies met the inclusion criteria. The strategies were identified as dissemination, process, integration, or capacity-building strategy. Involvement of all stakeholders was the most frequently mentioned facilitator, while lack of awareness was the most reported barrier. The results show that there is no consensus on which implementation strategies are appropriate and effective to use in this context. Also, there are no measures of effectiveness of pre-post design of these strategies. This shows that implementation strategies in municipal context regarding universal accessibility are still in an exploratory phase. However, it is possible to make links with the different implementation domains of the CFIR. We also observed that the identification of facilitators and obstacles to implementation is important to identify needs and to better plan the different stages of implementation.