Johns Hopkins Disability Health Research Center, Johns Hopkins University, 3400 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, MD, 21218, USA.
Johns Hopkins Disability Health Research Center, Johns Hopkins University, 3400 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, MD, 21218, USA; The Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, 600 N. Wolfe Street, Baltimore, MD, 21287, USA.
Disabil Health J. 2022 Jul;15(3):101325. doi: 10.1016/j.dhjo.2022.101325. Epub 2022 Apr 12.
The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated historical inequities for people with disabilities including barriers in accessing online information and healthcare appointment websites. These barriers were brought to the foreground during the vaccine rollout and registration process.
This cross-sectional study aimed to examine accessibility of U.S. state and territory COVID-19 information and registration centralized websites.
The Johns Hopkins Disability Health Research Center created a COVID-19 Vaccine Dashboard compiling COVID-19 information and vaccine registration web pages from 56 states and territories in the United States (U.S.) reviewed between March 30 through April 5, 2021 and analyzed accessibility using WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool (WAVE). WAVE identifies website accessibility barriers, including insufficient contrast, alternative text, unlabeled buttons, total number of errors, and error density. Web pages were ranked and grouped into three groups by number of errors, creating comparisons between states on accessibility barriers for people with disabilities.
All 56 U.S states and territories had COVID-19 information web pages and 29 states had centralized state vaccine registration web pages. Total errors, error density, and alert data were utilized to generate accessibility scores for each web page, the median score was 259 (range = 14 to 536 and IQR = 237) for information pages, and 146 (range = 10 to 281 and IQR = 105) for registration pages.
These results highlight barriers people with disabilities may encounter when accessing information and registering for the COVID-19 vaccine, which underscore inequities in the pandemic response for the disability community and elevate the need to prioritize accessibility of public health information.
COVID-19 大流行加剧了残疾人面临的历史不平等问题，包括在获取在线信息和预约医疗服务网站方面存在障碍。这些障碍在疫苗推出和注册过程中凸显出来。
本横断面研究旨在评估美国各州和领地 COVID-19 信息和注册集中网站的可及性。
约翰霍普金斯残疾健康研究中心创建了一个 COVID-19 疫苗仪表板，汇总了美国 56 个州和领地的 COVID-19 信息和疫苗注册网页，这些网页于 2021 年 3 月 30 日至 4 月 5 日进行了审查，并使用 WAVE Web 可访问性评估工具（WAVE）对可访问性进行了分析。WAVE 确定了网站可访问性障碍，包括对比度不足、替代文本、未标记按钮、总错误数和错误密度。根据错误数量对网页进行排名和分组，创建各州之间残疾人士可访问性障碍的比较。
美国所有 56 个州和领地都有 COVID-19 信息网页，29 个州有集中的州疫苗注册网页。总错误数、错误密度和警报数据用于为每个网页生成可访问性得分，信息页面的中位数得分为 259（范围为 14 至 536，IQR 为 237），注册页面为 146（范围为 10 至 281，IQR 为 105）。
这些结果突出了残疾人在获取信息和注册 COVID-19 疫苗时可能遇到的障碍，这突显了残疾人群体在大流行应对中的不平等，并强调了优先考虑公共卫生信息可访问性的必要性。
