Income disparities in driving distance to health care infrastructure in the United States: a geographic information systems analysis.

Guo J, Hernandez I, Dickson S, Tang S, Essien UR, Mair C, Berenbrok LA. Income disparities in driving distance to health care infrastructure in the United States: a geographic information systems analysis. BMC research notes. 2022 Jun 27; 15(1):225.

Dimensions for VA is a web-based tool available to VA staff that enables detailed searches of published research and research projects.

If you have VA-Intranet access, click here for more information vaww.hsrd.research.va.gov/dimensions/

VA staff not currently on the VA network can access Dimensions by registering for an account using their VA email address.    Search Dimensions for VA for this citation
* Don't have VA-internal network access or a VA email address? Try searching the free-to-the-public version of Dimensions

Search for Abstract from PubMed

---

Abstract:

OBJECTIVE: Inequities in access to health care contribute to persisting disparities in health care outcomes. We constructed a geographic information systems analysis to test the association between income and access to the existing health care infrastructure in a nationally representative sample of US residents. Using income and household size data, we calculated the odds ratio of having a distance? > 10 miles in nonmetropolitan counties or? > 1 mile in metropolitan counties to the closest facility for low-income residents (i.e.,? < 200% Federal Poverty Level), compared to non-low-income residents. RESULTS: We identified that in 954 counties (207 metropolitan counties and 747 nonmetropolitan counties) representing over 14% of the US population, low-income residents have poorer access to health care facilities. Our analyses demonstrate the high prevalence of structural disparities in health care access across the entire US, which contribute to the perpetuation of disparities in health care outcomes.