ArticleHealth services research2021
A comparison of methods for measuring spatial access to health care.
Article in Health services research, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers.
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Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed.
- Quantifying spatial accessibility to inpatient hospices in Germany.BMC health services research · 2026Article
- Impacts of a Rural Hospital Global Budget Alternative Payment Model on Patterns of Cancer Surgery.Medical care · 2026Article
- Access to surgery in Ecuador using the enhanced 2-step floating catchment area approach.BMC global and public health · 2026Article
- Bridging theory and behavior for healthcare accessibility modeling: A mobility-driven revision of the E2SFCA.PloS one · 2026Article
- Impact of spatial accessibility to primary care physicians on health care outcomes and costs.International journal of health geographics · 2025Article
- Association between rapid opioid reduction or discontinuation and self-harm, suicide attempt, and suicide death among patients receiving high-dose, long-term opioid therapy in North Carolina, 2006-2018.American journal of epidemiology · 2025Article
- Spatial accessibility of substance use disorder treatment programs, compared with other health care facilities, in New York State, 2024.Addiction science & clinical practice · 2025Article
- Association of a State-Wide Alternative Payment Model for Rural Hospitals With Bypass for Elective Surgeries.Health services research · 2025Article
- Article
- Measuring Spatial Access of Vulnerable Population to HIV Testing Facilities in the Baton Rouge Metropolitan Statistical Area, Louisiana.AIDS and behavior · 2024Article
- Rural and frontier access to mental health prescribers and nonprescribers: A geospatial analysis in Oregon Medicaid.The Journal of rural health : official journal of the American Rural Health Association and the National Rural Health Care Association · 2024Article
- Estimated travel time and staffing constraints to accessing the Ethiopian health care system: A two-step floating catchment area analysis.Journal of global health · 2023Article
- Disparities in Spatial Access to Emergency Surgical Services in the US.JAMA health forum · 2022Article
- Disparities in geographic access to medical oncologists.Health services research · 2022Article
- Medicaid Managed Care: Access To Primary Care Providers Who Prescribe Buprenorphine.Health affairs (Project Hope) · 2022Article
- A comparison of methods for measuring spatial access to health care.Health services research · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveTo compare measures of spatial access to care commonly used by policy makers and researchers with the more comprehensive enhanced two-step floating catchment area (E2SFCA) method. STUDY
settingFourteen southwestern Pennsylvania counties. STUDY
designWe estimated spatial access to buprenorphine-waivered prescribers using three commonly used measures-Euclidean travel distance to the closest prescriber, travel time to the closest provider, and provider-to-population ratios-and the E2SFCA. Unlike other measures, the E2SFCA captures provider capacity, potential patient volume, and travel time to prescribers. DATA COLLECTION/EXTRACTION
methodsWe measured provider capacity as the number of buprenorphine prescribers listed at a given address in the Drug Enforcement Agency's 2020 Controlled Substances Act Registrants Database, and we measured potential patient volume as the number of nonelderly adults in a given census tract as reported by the 2018 American Community Survey. We estimated travel times between potential patients and prescribers with Bing Maps and Mapbox application programming interfaces. We then calculated each spatial access measure using the R programming language. We used each measure of spatial access to identify census tracts in the lowest quintile of spatial access to prescribers. PRINCIPAL
findingsThe Euclidean distance, travel time, and provider-to-population ratio measures identified 48.3%, 47.2%, and 69.9% of the census tracts that the E2SFCA measure identified as being in the lowest quintile of spatial access to care, meaning that these measures misclassify 30%-52% of study area census tracts as having sufficient spatial access to buprenorphine prescribers.
conclusionsMeasures of spatial access commonly used by policy makers do not sufficiently accurately identify geographic areas with relatively low access to prescribers of buprenorphine. Using the E2SFCA in addition to the commonly used measures would allow policy makers to precisely target interventions to increase spatial access to opioid use disorder treatment and other types of health care services.
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