Gaining actionable knowledge to improve local health-promoting capacities in long-term care support settings for people with intellectual disabilities

Objective
People with intellectual disabilities (ID) are largely dependent on their environment to live healthily and, in this, ID-support organizations play a vital role. An environmental asset mapping tool for ID-support settings has been developed. This study aims to provide insight into whether or not the tool can provide a comprehensive view on assets in the system and actionable knowledge to improve health-promoting capacities in ID-support settings.

Methods
Fifty-seven users from four setting completed the tool on availability, user satisfaction, and dreams regarding social, physical, organizational, and financial assets.

Results
The findings provide a comprehensive view of available assets. Together with user satisfaction and dreams for improvements, they provide actionable knowledge for improving the health-promoting capacities of the settings, including: (1) how use of available assets can be improved, (2) the type of assets that should be enriched, and (3) the assets that can be added to the system.

Conclusion
The asset mapping tool provides a comprehensive view on assets in the system and actionable knowledge to improve health-promoting capacities in ID-support settings.

Practice implications
ID-support organizations can use the tool to generate actionable bottom-up knowledge for priority setting and implementing interventions to improve their health-promoting capacities.