The selection of items for the preliminary version of the COURAGE in Europe built environment instrument

Abstract

The built environment can increase or decrease disability through its impact on mobility or accessibility to infrastructures, and through its relation to social environment. There is a need for the development of a tool which allows to assess built environment in both objective and self-reported manner, contemplating also issues of accessibility and disability, and that allows data comparability across countries and populations. The present paper describes the preliminary process of the development of a new built environment instrument. It describes the process of the selection, creation and categorisation of a pool of items from the 31 instruments resulting from the UDHP Project. A pool of items was created and was used to produce two lists: the outdoor checklist, and the self-reported questionnaire. These two lists formed the basis of the COURAGE in Europe built environment instrument. The outcome of this selection and categorisation process was the creation of two lists of items, that are meant to measure the interaction between the built environment and aspects of health and disability in ageing.