Mobility, Access, and Participation for Disabled People

Dear Colleagues,

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, adopted in 2006, aimed to promote, protect, and ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms by all persons with disabilities, and to promote respect for their dignity. However, due to accessibility issues pertaining to the social and physical environment, people with mobility impairments continue to experience low levels of social participation and inclusion, which impact their ability to contribute to their community as much as they would like. In some cases, disabled individuals may choose to quit their active lifestyles because of these obstacles. This environment is generating socio-economic conditions that contributed to their depletion impacting their health status on a long-term basis.

Many governments have recently developed new policies and legislation to address this issue. There remains a lack of knowledge, however, about how to best implement these policies to make processes, premises, and attitudes more inclusive of people with disabilities and ensure their relevance at the municipal level, where most accessibility-related changes occur.

This Special Issue aims to highlight mobility and accessibility interventions that promote the participation of individuals with intellectual and/or physical disabilities and autism. We wish to promote participatory research involving people with disabilities and the organizations that provide them with services, represent them, or advocate for them: municipalities, transportation companies, etc. Potential topics include navigation and pedestrian environment accessibility, transportation accessibility, and social accessibility (attitudinal and social factors), among others. Submitted manuscripts may address policies, rehabilitation interventions, clinical practices, municipal practices, community approaches, etc. We encourage and welcome submissions across a broad range of topics and study types.

Prof. Dr. François Routhier
Dr. Normand Boucher
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Disabilities is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.