How can care settings for people with intellectual disabilities embed health promotion?

People with intellectual disabilities (ID) depend on their environment to live healthily. Asset-based health promotion enhances a settings' health-promoting capacity starting with identifying protective or promotive factors that sustain health.

This inclusive mixed-methods study used group sessions to generate and rank ideas on assets supporting healthy nutrition and physical activity in Dutch intellectual disability care settings. Participants included people with moderate intellectual disabilities and family and care professionals of people with severe/profound intellectual disabilities.

Fifty-one participants identified 185 assets in group sessions. They include the following: (i) the social network and ways "people" can support, (ii) assets in/around "places," and person-environment fit, and (iii) "preconditions": health care, prevention, budget, and policy.

This inclusive research provides a user perspective on assets in the living environment supporting healthy living. This gives insight in contextual factors needed for development and sustainable embedment of health promotion in the systems of intellectual disability support settings.