ArticleThe western journal of emergency medicine2025
Accessibility of Urgent Care Centers: A Socioeconomic and Geospatial Evaluation.
Article in The western journal of emergency medicine, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionUrgent care centers (UC) play an important role in addressing non-emergent health concerns, offering a convenient alternative to emergency departments (ED). However, accessibility to UCs can vary based on transportation availability and socioeconomic factors. In this study we evaluated the geospatial accessibility of UCs and EDs in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, and sought to characterize the relationship between transit options, socioeconomic vulnerability, and access to care.
methodsWe included 13 EDs and 13 UCs in the study. Public and private transit times between census tracts in Milwaukee County and the nearest UC or ED were calculated using an application programming interface that recorded data from Google Maps. We employed socioeconomic vulnerability index (SEVI) scores to define community vulnerability. Statistical analyses, including Mann-Whitney U tests and Pearson correlation coefficients, were used to determine differences in commute times and their relationship with socioeconomic status.
resultsPrivate transit times were shorter than public transit times when commuting to the nearest ED (7 minutes vs 22 minutes, P <.001) and the nearest UC (9 minutes vs 31 minutes, P < .001). The EDs were generally more accessible than UCs, with shorter transit (22 vs 31 minutes, P < .001) and walk times (11 vs 14 minutes, P <.001). Socioeconomically disadvantaged communities with higher SEVI scores had longer private transit times to UCs (r = 0.17, P = .003) while having shorter public transit times to EDs (r = -.21, P < .001).
conclusionAccess to urgent care centers and EDs in Milwaukee County is influenced by socioeconomic factors and transportation modes. While EDs are more accessible to socioeconomically vulnerable communities, UCs are less accessible, which may contribute to higher ED utilization for non-emergent needs. These findings highlight the need to address transportation limitations as a social determinant of health that can impact how disadvantaged populations seek care and the implications for non-emergent ED use and ED crowding.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.