Global maps of travel time to healthcare facilities
Abstract
Access to medical care is a fundamental human right that is constrained, in part, by the realities of the geographically dispersed human population. Using an established methodology, we map travel time to hospitals and clinics globally by utilizing major data collection efforts underway by OpenStreetMap, Google Maps, and researchers who have published continental-scale datasets. While no comprehensive database of global healthcare facilities exists, by leveraging the geographically variable strengths of our facility datasets we characterize global travel time to healthcare facilities in unprecedented detail. We produce travel time maps for both with and without ready access to motorized transport, thus providing upper and lower bounds that characterize travel time to healthcare for populations distributed across the wealth spectrum. We found that 93.3% of humans can reach a hospital or clinic within 60 minutes if they have access to motorized transport, while just 58.4% can reach healthcare within one hour by walking alone. As such, our maps highlight an additional vulnerability faced by poorer individuals in many remote areas. By enumerating travel time, we provide a needed input for accurately estimating the likelihood individuals well seek healthcare when they fall ill, which in turn improves our ability to estimate the burden of numerous diseases experienced by humanity. Furthermore, the maps of travel time to healthcare provide an evidence base for more efficiently allocating limited healthcare and transportation resources to underserved populations, and thus have the potential to provide a substantial contribution to global public health.
Research Areas
