Delphine Labbe, Monika Stodolska, Yohai Eisenberg, and Casey Herman

In this project, funded by the US Department of Health and Human Services, Drs. Monika Stodolska and Delphine Labbe, Yohai Eisenberg, and Casey Herman of the University of Illinois at Chicago explore access to and participation in leisure time physical activity (LTPA) for people with intersecting marginalized identities of disability and racial and ethnic minority backgrounds. Using an ecological framework, the overall goal of the study is to better understand needs, constraints and facilitators to LTPA participation experienced by people with disabilities from racial and ethnic minority backgrounds and to identify gaps in services and resources for meeting these needs. This study aims to (1) increase our understanding of the factors that impact an individual’s access to and participation in LTPA; (2) document and analyze existing community based programs offering opportunities for adaptive LTPA to identify organizational impacts on LTPA participation; (3) analyze existing policies that may impact disability and inclusion of racial and ethnic minorities in LTPA; and (4) develop evidence-informed priorities and recommendations to support equitable access to LTPA for people with disabilities from ethnic and racial minority groups.