Urban–suburb disparities in pre-hospital emergency medical resources and response time among patients with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest: A mixed-method cross-sectional study

AIM: To investigate (1) the association between pre-hospital emergency medical resources and pre-hospital emergency medical system (EMS) response time among patients with Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA); (2) whether the association differs between urban and suburbs. METHODS: Densities of ambulances and physicians were independent variables, respectively. Pre-hospital emergency medical system response time was dependent variable. Multivariate linear regression was used to investigate the roles of ambulance density and physician density in pre-hospital EMS response time. Qualitative data were collected and analyzed to explore reasons for the disparities in pre-hospital resources between urban areas and suburbs. RESULTS: Ambulance density and physician density were both negatively associated with call to ambulance dispatch time, with odds ratios (ORs) 0.98 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.96–0.99; P = 0.001) and 0.97 (95% CI; 0.93–0.99; P < 0.001), respectively. ORs of ambulance density and physician density in association with total response time were 0.99 (95% CI: 0.97–0.99; P = 0.013) and 0.90 (95% CI: 0.86–0.99; P = 0.048). The effect of ambulance density on call to ambulance dispatch time in urban areas was 14% smaller than that in suburb areas and that on total response time in urban areas was 3% smaller than the effect in suburbs. Similar effects were identified for physician density on urban–suburb disparities in call to ambulance dispatch time and total response time. The main reasons summarized from stakeholders for a lack of physicians and ambulances in suburbs included low income, poor personal incentive mechanisms, and inequality in financial distribution of the healthcare system. CONCLUSION: Improving pre-hospital emergency medical resources allocation can reduce system delay and narrow urban-suburb disparity in EMS response time for OHCA patients.