ReviewInternational journal for equity in health2026
Medical deserts and uneven access: a U.S.-anchored critical conceptual review.
Review in International journal for equity in health, 2026. 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
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundMedical desert terminology is used inconsistently across rural health, health services research, and health policy. In some studies, it describes structural scarcity of local services. In others, it is used for waiting time, affordability, quality, or sociocultural barriers. This inconsistency blurs three different tasks: defining an underserved place, measuring that place, and explaining why people in the same place experience access differently.
methodsThis U.S.-anchored critical conceptual review draws together literature on desert terminology, access theory, rural service erosion, and medical mistrust.
resultsMedical deserts are defined here as structurally underserved places where needed services are locally unavailable, hard to reach, unstable, or difficult to replace after service loss. Institutional credibility and medical mistrust are treated as related explanatory dimensions of realized access. The review presents a heuristic that links structural access and institutional credibility while keeping them analytically distinct, and it outlines a multilevel measurement agenda for structural access, credibility, mistrust, and realized access.
conclusionsThis distinction may sharpen health equity research and policy by separating service infrastructure from the conditions that make care usable.
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.