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Putting Access to Veterinary Care on the Map: A Veterinary Care Accessibility Index
Access to veterinary care is a complex problem that sits at the intersection of a number of societal factors including income inequality, access to transportation, language and cultural differences as well as the spatial distribution of veterinary care providers. This research aims to create an inde...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2022
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9014118/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35445097 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2022.857644 |
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author | Neal, Sue M. Greenberg, Mike J. |
author_facet | Neal, Sue M. Greenberg, Mike J. |
author_sort | Neal, Sue M. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Access to veterinary care is a complex problem that sits at the intersection of a number of societal factors including income inequality, access to transportation, language and cultural differences as well as the spatial distribution of veterinary care providers. This research aims to create an index evaluating accessibility of veterinary care across the contiguous United States and thus fill an important gap in the literature. The location and number of employees of veterinary clinics were aggregated at the county level. Projected pet population and household counts were used to normalize the number of employees to provide a relative assessment of the distribution of care access. Existing US Census data was used as percentile rankings to identify counties which may experience additional, non-spatial, barriers to care. By combining the percentile rankings of each of the variables, an overall index was created, evaluating the relative accessibility of veterinary care in each of the counties of the contiguous US. This work can be used by organizations looking to improve access to care or by policymakers considering legislation that impacts this issue. It may also be of use to individuals in human health care as they consider the intersection of human wellness and companion animal wellness. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9014118 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-90141182022-04-19 Putting Access to Veterinary Care on the Map: A Veterinary Care Accessibility Index Neal, Sue M. Greenberg, Mike J. Front Vet Sci Veterinary Science Access to veterinary care is a complex problem that sits at the intersection of a number of societal factors including income inequality, access to transportation, language and cultural differences as well as the spatial distribution of veterinary care providers. This research aims to create an index evaluating accessibility of veterinary care across the contiguous United States and thus fill an important gap in the literature. The location and number of employees of veterinary clinics were aggregated at the county level. Projected pet population and household counts were used to normalize the number of employees to provide a relative assessment of the distribution of care access. Existing US Census data was used as percentile rankings to identify counties which may experience additional, non-spatial, barriers to care. By combining the percentile rankings of each of the variables, an overall index was created, evaluating the relative accessibility of veterinary care in each of the counties of the contiguous US. This work can be used by organizations looking to improve access to care or by policymakers considering legislation that impacts this issue. It may also be of use to individuals in human health care as they consider the intersection of human wellness and companion animal wellness. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-04-04 /pmc/articles/PMC9014118/ /pubmed/35445097 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2022.857644 Text en Copyright © 2022 Neal and Greenberg. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Veterinary Science Neal, Sue M. Greenberg, Mike J. Putting Access to Veterinary Care on the Map: A Veterinary Care Accessibility Index |
title | Putting Access to Veterinary Care on the Map: A Veterinary Care Accessibility Index |
title_full | Putting Access to Veterinary Care on the Map: A Veterinary Care Accessibility Index |
title_fullStr | Putting Access to Veterinary Care on the Map: A Veterinary Care Accessibility Index |
title_full_unstemmed | Putting Access to Veterinary Care on the Map: A Veterinary Care Accessibility Index |
title_short | Putting Access to Veterinary Care on the Map: A Veterinary Care Accessibility Index |
title_sort | putting access to veterinary care on the map: a veterinary care accessibility index |
topic | Veterinary Science |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9014118/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35445097 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2022.857644 |
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