From far and wide: Geographic distance to pediatric surgical care across Canada
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Read the article on jpedsurg.org ↗Article · Feb 2020 · 1 min read
In brief
In brief
Census-based analysis revealing that nearly 25% of Canadian children (1.7 million) live more than 100 km from the nearest pediatric surgeon, with 13% living beyond 200 km. Study highlights significant geographic barriers to specialized surgical care, particularly affecting rural and remote populations across Canada's vast geography.
Written by the GCMD Library team from the article.
Purpose
Canada is the second largest country in the world, with most of the population located in the southern-most portion of its geography. We sought to define the relative distribution of pediatric surgeons to potential pediatric patients using data from the Canadian census.
Methods
The 2011 Canadian Census and a convenience sample of current Canadian pediatric surgeons were used to calculate straight-line distances between pediatric surgeon postal code centroids and census dissemination block centroids.
Results
Currently, there are 74 practicing pediatric surgeons in Canada; 493,345 populated census blocks were identified, and 7,752,075 children were enumerated. The median (IQR) kilometers to the closest pediatric surgeon was 27.99 (11.35, 85.47) kilometers, and 22.7% of Canadian children lived more than 100 km from care. Nearly 13% of children lived greater than 200 km from the nearest pediatric surgeon.
Conclusion
More than 1.7 million Canadian children, nearly one quarter of all Canadian children, live greater than 100 km from the closest pediatric surgeon. This identifies a disparate group of patients who do not have an equal access-to-care as compared to others in the country.
Level of Evidence
Level IV.