ArticleInternational journal of environmental research and public health2022
Rural-Urban Disparities in Realized Spatial Access to General Practitioners, Orthopedic Surgeons, and Physiotherapists among People with Osteoarthritis in Alberta, Canada.
Article in International journal of environmental research and public health, 2022. 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.
- Influence of Demographic Factors on Presentation, Symptoms and Function in Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Coordinated Primary-Care Access in Rural and Suburban Alberta, with a Contextual Comparison to Rural Wyoming: A Systematic Review and Narrative Synthesis of Community Pharmacist-Family Physician Care Models.Pharmacy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Physical and Occupational Therapist Evaluations for Fall Prevention in the Emergency Department: A Geriatric ED Guidelines 2.0 Systematic Review.Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine · 2026Article
- The Impact of the Area Deprivation Index on Knee and Hip Health.Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities · 2026Article
- Cross-Sectional Evaluation of a Physiotherapist-Led Hip and Knee Osteoarthritis Program: Perceived Benefits and Factors that Influence Patient Access and Adherence.Journal of patient experience · 2026Article
- Travel Distance and Its Impact on Wait Time for Positron Emission Tomography-Computed Tomography in Patients with Cancers.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2025Article
- Disparities in Healthcare Utilization by Settlement Type in Serbia.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Associations between patient characteristics and delayed acute care discharge post-hip fracture surgery: a cohort study using linked health administrative data in Ontario, Canada.BMC musculoskeletal disorders · 2025Article
- Access and utilisation of allied health services among community dwelling rural adults aged 50 years and older living with chronic conditions: a scoping review.Age and ageing · 2025Article
- Geographic Accessibility to Pelvic Health Physiotherapy Services Across Ontario: A Geographic Information System Analysis.Physiotherapy Canada. Physiotherapie Canada · 2025Article
- Informing equitable access to care: a cross-sectional study of travel burden to primary and rheumatology care for people with rheumatoid arthritis.International journal for equity in health · 2025Article
- Evaluating methods to define place of residence in Canadian administrative data and the impact on observed associations with all-cause mortality in type 2 diabetes.BMC medical research methodology · 2025Article
- Article
- A place to call our home: innovative rural physical therapy training in Canada.BMC medical education · 2024Article
- Engagement and Utilization of a Complete Remote Digital Care Program for Musculoskeletal Pain Management in Urban and Rural Areas Across the United States: Longitudinal Cohort Study.JMIR mHealth and uHealth · 2023Article
- Rural-Urban Differences in Non-Local Primary Care Utilization among People with Osteoarthritis: The Role of Area-Level Factors.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Rural Canadians have high health care needs due to high prevalence of osteoarthritis (OA) but lack access to care. Examining realized access to three types of providers (general practitioners (GPs), orthopedic surgeons (Ortho), and physiotherapists (PTs)) simultaneously helps identify gaps in access to needed OA care, inform accessibility assessment, and support health care resource allocation. Travel time from a patient's postal code to the physician's postal code was calculated using origin-destination network analysis. We applied descriptive statistics to summarize differences in travel time, hotspot analysis to explore geospatial patterns, and distance decay function to examine the travel pattern of health care utilization by urbanicity. The median travel time in Alberta was 11.6 min (IQR = 4.3-25.7) to GPs, 28.9 (IQR = 14.8-65.0) to Ortho, and 33.7 (IQR = 23.1-47.3) to PTs. We observed significant rural-urban disparities in realized access to GPs (2.9 and IQR = 0.0-92.1 in rural remote areas vs. 12.6 and IQR = 6.4-21.0 in metropolitan areas), Ortho (233.3 and IQR = 171.3-363.7 in rural remote areas vs. 21.3 and IQR = 14.0-29.3 in metropolitan areas), and PTs (62.4 and IQR = 0.0-232.1 in rural remote areas vs. 32.1 and IQR = 25.2-39.9 in metropolitan areas). We identified hotspots of realized access to all three types of providers in rural remote areas, where patients with OA tend to travel longer for health care. This study may provide insight on the choice of catchment size and the distance decay pattern of health care utilization for further studies on spatial accessibility.
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