Results From Finland’s 2022 Para Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Adolescents With Disabilities

Abstract

Finland’s 2022 Para Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Adolescents With Disabilities includes a summary of results and grades for 10 physical activity indicators and highlights how these grades are interpreted by stakeholders. The disability classification was based on the UNICEF/Washington Group on Disability Statistics measure, Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD7) measure, or education status. Data between 2017 and 2021 were reviewed by 24 physical activity specialists using benchmarks adapted for data on disabilities from the Active Healthy Kids Global Alliance. The grades were assigned as follows: Overall Physical Activity, C+; Organized Sport, C; Active Play, D; Active Transportation, B; Family and Peers, C+; School, B; Community and Environment, C−; Government, A−; sedentary behavior and physical fitness were graded as incomplete. Stakeholder focus-group discussions highlighted the need for multidisciplinary cooperation and increasing competence of specialists working with children to promote a physically active lifestyle for all children.

“WOT” Do We Know and Do About Physical Activity of Children and Adolescents With Disabilities? A SWOT-Oriented Synthesis of Para Report Cards

“…Local teams that participated in the Para Report Cards within this special issue were asked to include interpretations related to their report cards' grades, and it was recommended to use a SWOT analysis framework. Specifically, submitted manuscripts from Brazil (Silva & da Silva, 2022), Canada (Arbour-Nicitopoulos et al, 2022), Finland (Asunta et al, 2022), France (Aubert, Verdot, et al, 2022), Hong Kong (Sit, Huang, et al, 2022), Ireland (Ng, Healy, et al, 2022), Israel (Hutzler et al, 2022), Lithuania (Pozeriene et al, in press), South Korea (Lee et al, 2022), Spain (Lo ´pez-Gil et al, in press), and the United States (Stanish et al, 2023) were collated for this synthesis. Documents submitted at the time of auditor review were used for Chile, Philippines (Kang et al, 2022), and Poland.…”

“…As many PAs are done outdoors, weather conditions and pollution status may play a role as a barrier, mainly during active transport. In particular, under "winter conditions with reduced mobility" (Asunta et al, 2022), such as in Finland, or having to cope with "hot and humid weather that hinders (outdoor) play; high air pollution" (Sit, Huang, et al, 2022), such as in Hong Kong, active transport as well as outdoor PAs seem to be restrictive for CAWD. In Martin Ginis et al's (2016) review, the weather was considered a barrier to PA for CAWD as creating programs for outdoor training and competition was seen as difficult to resolve when weather conditions were unpredictable.…”

“…In Ireland, the government indicator scored the highest grade, partly due to the "investment of one million Euro for professional community staff" (Ng, Healy, et al, 2022). Similarly, in Finland, "a wide range of funding opportunities and various projects to promote equality" (Asunta et al, 2022) have been opened by governmental bodies. It appears that European governments have adopted inclusive policies wherein diversity in performance is accepted and cherished.…”

“…For example, the Hong Kong team highlighted that there was an "equity issue due to the big gap between the rich and the poor" (Sit, Huang, et al, 2022). The Finnish team added that because adapted PA service provision will be reformed from 2023, "Tight resources can weaken the situation of some municipalities" (Asunta et al, 2022). In France, the low socioeconomic status of parents was reported as a general threat to the PA of CAWD.…”

Global Matrix of Para Report Cards on Physical Activity of Children and Adolescents With Disabilities

“…Data in other Para Report Cards could have been based on participation in a combination of three typical settings: specialized programs, reverse integration (disability sports played by people with and without disabilities), or inclusion programs (Black & Williamson, 2011). For example, data from Canada and Finland were from national surveys specific to CAWD and two nationally representative health-based surveys (Arbour-Nicitopoulos et al, 2022;Asunta et al, 2022). Organizers of sport for CAWD can vary from place to place, from community to school groups and from regional camps to national sports federation organized activities (Geidne & Jerlinder, 2016), yet this type of information on program type, frequency, and quality of participation (Evans et al, 2018) was not explored through the benchmark in its current form.…”