Global maps of travel time to healthcare facilities
Top Cited Papers
- 28 September 2020
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Springer Science and Business Media LLC in Nature Medicine
- Vol. 26 (12), 1835-1838
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-020-1059-1
Abstract
Access to healthcare is a requirement for human well-being that is constrained, in part, by the allocation of healthcare resources relative to the geographically dispersed human population1,2,3. Quantifying access to care globally is challenging due to the absence of a comprehensive database of healthcare facilities. We harness major data collection efforts underway by OpenStreetMap, Google Maps and academic researchers to compile the most complete collection of facility locations to date. Leveraging the geographically variable strengths of our facility datasets, we use an established methodology4 to characterize travel time to healthcare facilities in unprecedented detail. We produce maps of travel time with and without access to motorized transport, thus characterizing travel time to healthcare for populations distributed across the wealth spectrum. We find that just 8.9% of the global population (646 million people) cannot reach healthcare within one hour if they have access to motorized transport, and that 43.3% (3.16 billion people) cannot reach a healthcare facility by foot within one hour. Our maps highlight an additional vulnerability faced by poorer individuals in remote areas and can help to estimate whether individuals will seek healthcare when it is needed, as well as providing an evidence base for efficiently distributing limited healthcare and transportation resources to underserved populations both now and in the future.Keywords
This publication has 41 references indexed in Scilit:
- Measuring Completeness of Building Footprints in OpenStreetMap over Space and TimeISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, 2013
- Assessing Completeness and Spatial Error of Features in Volunteered Geographic InformationISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, 2013
- A Photogrammetric Approach for Assessing Positional Accuracy of OpenStreetMap© RoadsISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, 2013
- Traveling Towards Disease: Transportation Barriers to Health Care AccessJournal of Community Health, 2013
- Spatial modelling of healthcare utilisation for treatment of fever in NamibiaInternational Journal of Health Geographics, 2012
- Distance is Relative: Unpacking a Principal Barrier in Rural HealthcareJournal of General Internal Medicine, 2011
- Quality Assessment of the French OpenStreetMap DatasetTransactions in GIS, 2010
- Defining equity in physical access to clinical services using geographical information systems as part of malaria planning and monitoring in KenyaTropical Medicine & International Health, 2003
- Too far to walk: Maternal mortality in contextSocial Science & Medicine (1982), 1994
- A note on two problems in connexion with graphsNumerische Mathematik, 1959