Cargando…

Assessing consistency among indices to measure socioeconomic barriers to health care access

Many places within rural America lack ready access to health care facilities. Barriers to access can be both spatial and non-spatial. Measurements of spatial access, such as the Enhanced Floating 2-Step Catchment Area and other floating catchment area measures, produce similar patterns of access. Ho...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Conley, Jamison, Hong, Insu, Williams, Amber, Taylor, Rachael, Gross, Thomson, Wilson, Bradley
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer US 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8286164/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34305442
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10742-021-00257-5
_version_ 1783723689128230912
author Conley, Jamison
Hong, Insu
Williams, Amber
Taylor, Rachael
Gross, Thomson
Wilson, Bradley
author_facet Conley, Jamison
Hong, Insu
Williams, Amber
Taylor, Rachael
Gross, Thomson
Wilson, Bradley
author_sort Conley, Jamison
collection PubMed
description Many places within rural America lack ready access to health care facilities. Barriers to access can be both spatial and non-spatial. Measurements of spatial access, such as the Enhanced Floating 2-Step Catchment Area and other floating catchment area measures, produce similar patterns of access. However, the extent to which different measurements of socioeconomic barriers to access correspond with each other has not been examined. Using West Virginia as a case study, we compute indices based upon the literature and measure the correlations among them. We find that all indices positively correlate with each other, although the strength of the correlation varies. Also, while there is broad agreement in the general spatial trends, such as fewer barriers in urban areas, and more barriers in the impoverished southwestern portion of the state, there are regions within the state that have more disagreement among the indices. These indices are to be used to support decision-making with respect to placement of rural residency students from medical schools within West Virginia to provide students with educational experiences as well as address health care inequalities within the state. The results indicate that for decisions and policies that address statewide trends, the choice of metric is not critical. However, when the decisions involve specific locations for receiving rural residents or opening clinics, the results can become more sensitive to the selection of the index. Therefore, for fine-grained policy decision-making, it is important that the chosen index best represents the processes under consideration.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-8286164
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2021
publisher Springer US
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-82861642021-07-19 Assessing consistency among indices to measure socioeconomic barriers to health care access Conley, Jamison Hong, Insu Williams, Amber Taylor, Rachael Gross, Thomson Wilson, Bradley Health Serv Outcomes Res Methodol Article Many places within rural America lack ready access to health care facilities. Barriers to access can be both spatial and non-spatial. Measurements of spatial access, such as the Enhanced Floating 2-Step Catchment Area and other floating catchment area measures, produce similar patterns of access. However, the extent to which different measurements of socioeconomic barriers to access correspond with each other has not been examined. Using West Virginia as a case study, we compute indices based upon the literature and measure the correlations among them. We find that all indices positively correlate with each other, although the strength of the correlation varies. Also, while there is broad agreement in the general spatial trends, such as fewer barriers in urban areas, and more barriers in the impoverished southwestern portion of the state, there are regions within the state that have more disagreement among the indices. These indices are to be used to support decision-making with respect to placement of rural residency students from medical schools within West Virginia to provide students with educational experiences as well as address health care inequalities within the state. The results indicate that for decisions and policies that address statewide trends, the choice of metric is not critical. However, when the decisions involve specific locations for receiving rural residents or opening clinics, the results can become more sensitive to the selection of the index. Therefore, for fine-grained policy decision-making, it is important that the chosen index best represents the processes under consideration. Springer US 2021-07-17 2022 /pmc/articles/PMC8286164/ /pubmed/34305442 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10742-021-00257-5 Text en © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2021 This article is made available via the PMC Open Access Subset for unrestricted research re-use and secondary analysis in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for the duration of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic.
spellingShingle Article
Conley, Jamison
Hong, Insu
Williams, Amber
Taylor, Rachael
Gross, Thomson
Wilson, Bradley
Assessing consistency among indices to measure socioeconomic barriers to health care access
title Assessing consistency among indices to measure socioeconomic barriers to health care access
title_full Assessing consistency among indices to measure socioeconomic barriers to health care access
title_fullStr Assessing consistency among indices to measure socioeconomic barriers to health care access
title_full_unstemmed Assessing consistency among indices to measure socioeconomic barriers to health care access
title_short Assessing consistency among indices to measure socioeconomic barriers to health care access
title_sort assessing consistency among indices to measure socioeconomic barriers to health care access
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8286164/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34305442
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10742-021-00257-5
work_keys_str_mv AT conleyjamison assessingconsistencyamongindicestomeasuresocioeconomicbarrierstohealthcareaccess
AT honginsu assessingconsistencyamongindicestomeasuresocioeconomicbarrierstohealthcareaccess
AT williamsamber assessingconsistencyamongindicestomeasuresocioeconomicbarrierstohealthcareaccess
AT taylorrachael assessingconsistencyamongindicestomeasuresocioeconomicbarrierstohealthcareaccess
AT grossthomson assessingconsistencyamongindicestomeasuresocioeconomicbarrierstohealthcareaccess
AT wilsonbradley assessingconsistencyamongindicestomeasuresocioeconomicbarrierstohealthcareaccess