Understanding access to healthcare: The impact of data inequalities on measures of spatial access

Keywords: Access, healthcare, inequalities, VGI
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Monday
Session Start / End Time: 2/28/2022 09:40 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/28/2022 11:00 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 61

Abstract

Of the many issues affecting accessibility to healthcare, service availability (also known as spatial accessibility) provides one of the most prominent barriers. Spatial accessibility is increasingly measured through the calculation of network distance between residences and primary healthcare providers. However, such approaches are reliant upon the availability of a complete road dataset, which is an unrealistic assumption in many lower income countries. Volunteered geographic information (VGI) datasets such as OpenStreetMap provide a realistic alternative to traditional data sources, but mapping activities are hampered by challenges in volunteer engagement, particularly in the most remote and rural regions where the need is greatest. Accordingly, it is vital that we can prioritise mapping activities and understand how much data is ‘enough’ for robust accessibility analysis, rather than striving for arbitrary notions of ‘completeness’. We therefore present a novel sensitivity analysis, whereby national accessibility scores are iteratively assessed for countries using increasingly degraded datasets in order to evaluate the impact of dataset completeness upon accessibility scores. In doing so, we are able to characterise the impact of poor data coverage upon accessibility measures, including understanding the point at which further improvement starts to have a negligible impact, meaning that volunteer efforts are better deployed elsewhere. This understanding will both permit the more efficient deployment of volunteer efforts in addressing global mapping inequalities, and provide unprecedented insight into the impact of poor data coverage upon our understanding of global healthcare accessibility.