TRB Pubsindex
Text Size:
x

« Prev Next »

Return to Results | New Search

Bookmark and Share

Title:

Accessibility to Healthcare via Public Transport across Canada

Accession Number:

01697950

Record Type:

Component

Abstract:

The ability to access healthcare services has long been considered a ‘right’ by Canadian citizens, and is protected as such under the Canada Health Act. However, socio-spatial factors can limit access to healthcare services, especially for vulnerable populations. This paper aims to quantify the spatial accessibility to healthcare services by public transport across eight major Canadian metropolitan areas, and compare accessibility to healthcare across vulnerable population groups. Spatial accessibility to general medical and surgical hospitals was measured through a two-step floating catchment area method, taking into account both service-to-population ratios and travel time to these health services. Within cities, accessibility is equitably distributed: residents of vulnerable census tracts generally have greater access to health services by public transport, with the exception of Vancouver. To quantify vertical equity, an indicator was subsequently developed using the Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient between accessibility and vulnerability. Results show that larger metropolitan areas (Calgary, Toronto-Hamilton, and Vancouver) tend to underperform in terms of vertical equity and average accessibility. This research highlights the challenges associated with the suburbanization of poverty in large Canadian metropolitan regions and the need to provide efficient public transport services to reach hospitals located in the periphery. This study is of relevance to researchers, planners and policy-makers wishing to improve accessibility to healthcare, especially for vulnerable populations.

Supplemental Notes:

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ADD50 Standing Committee on Environmental Justice in Transportation.

Report/Paper Numbers:

19-01463

Language:

English

Corporate Authors:

Transportation Research Board

Authors:

Boisjoly, Geneviève
Deboosere, Robbin
Wasfi, Rania
Orpana, Heather
Manaugh, Kevin
Buliung, Ron
El-Geneidy, Ahmed

Pagination:

16p

Publication Date:

2019

Conference:

Transportation Research Board 98th Annual Meeting

Location: Washington DC, United States
Date: 2019-1-13 to 2019-1-17
Sponsors: Transportation Research Board

Media Type:

Digital/other

Features:

Figures; Maps; References; Tables

Geographic Terms:

Canada

Subject Areas:

Public Transportation; Society

Source Data:

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2019 Paper #19-01463

Files:

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Created Date:

Dec 7 2018 9:42AM