Towards Inclusive Physical Activity: A Systematic Review of Scopus Evidence on Multidimensional Barriers in Physical and Intellectual Disabilities
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Objectives. The study aimed to systematically analyze barriers to physical activity (PA) among individuals with physical and intellectual disabilities, integrating the COM-B model and Social Determinants of Health (SDH) framework to identify universal and disability-specific challenges. Materials and methods. The present research involved a PRISMA-guided systematic review of 14 Scopus-indexed studies published between 2021 and 2025 from high- (HICs) and low-middle-income countries (LMICs). Thematic synthesis categorized barriers into environmental/structural, intrapersonal, and sociocultural domains. Results. The results revealed environmental/structural barriers as predominant (10 studies), including transportation limitations (29% in Norway), inaccessible facilities (91% inactivity in Canadian children), and institutional resource gaps. Intrapersonal barriers (4 studies) included motivation deficits and gender stigma (8 unique barriers for women with physical disabilities). Distinct challenges were identified: individuals with physical disabilities faced fatigue (β = -0.34, p < 0.001) and chronic pain, while individuals with intellectual disabilities encountered caregiver dependency and cognitive limitations. Geographic disparities highlighted infrastructural barriers in HICs (e.g., Belgium’s adaptive program gaps) versus motivational/resource challenges in LMICs (e.g., 0% PA compliance among Turkish mothers). Conclusions. The findings of this study underscore the need for tailored, multi-level interventions addressing disability-specific barriers and systemic inequities. Policy priorities include infrastructure investment, caregiver training, and stigma reduction to align with SDGs 3 (Health) and 10 (Reduced Inequalities). Cross-sector collaboration and context-driven strategies are critical to operationalize inclusive PA frameworks globally.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.050 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".