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. 2009 Jun;15(2):520-531.
doi: 10.1016/j.healthplace.2008.08.011. Epub 2008 Oct 18.

Understanding the experience of place: expanding methods to conceptualize and measure community integration of persons with serious mental illness

Greg Townley  1 , Bret Kloos  2 , Patricia A Wright  2
Affiliations

Understanding the experience of place: expanding methods to conceptualize and measure community integration of persons with serious mental illness

Greg Townley et al. Health Place. 2009 Jun.

Abstract

Community integration research explores community contexts and factors that encourage or hinder individuals with serious mental illness (SMI) from actively participating in community life. This research agenda can be advanced by using mixed-methods that better document the relationships between contextual factors and individual experience. Two such methods were applied to a mixed-methods study of 40 adults with SMI living in independent housing in the Southeastern United States. Their contextualized experiences of community integration were measured by applying innovative participatory mapping and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) mapping techniques. Use of these methods in conjunction with one another facilitated the creation of activity spaces, which can measure geographic accessibility and help to represent an individual's experience of place and degree of mobility. The utility of these newly applied methods for better understanding community integration for persons with SMI is explored and implications for using these measures in research and practice are discussed.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Model of suggested relationships between the index of community integration and adaptive outcomes
Figure 2
Figure 2
Illustration of a map in which participants adhered to more traditional conventions of map-making, including labeled roads, accurately placed and scaled locations, and accurate geographic orientation
Figure 3
Figure 3
Illustration of a map in which participants placed more emphasis on drawing detailed structures that they travel to in their communities but did not rely on geographic accuracy
Figure 4
Figure 4
Map of Richland and Lexington counties displaying five activity space ellipses. The points on the map represent the participants’ various activity locations. The activity spaces were created using the standard deviational ellipse method to capture 68% of the activity locations.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Example of an activity space in which activity locations are evenly distributed around the city.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Example of an activity space in which activity locations are clustered in two sections of the city.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Example of an activity space that includes one activity location located a far distance from the individual's home.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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