Geographic distance to pediatric surgical care within the continental United States
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Read the article on jpedsurg.org ↗Article · Mar 2019 · 1 min read
In brief
In brief
This 2010 census-based study reveals that over 10 million U.S. children lived more than 60 miles from a pediatric surgeon, with significant disparities by race, ethnicity, and urbanization. Native American children faced the greatest barriers, with 40.5% living beyond 60 miles from care, highlighting critical gaps in pediatric surgical workforce distribution.
Written by the GCMD Library team from the article.
Purpose
Geographic proximity to pediatric surgical care has not been evaluated using the Decennial Census nor have racial, ethnic, gender, or urbanization variations been reported. This study's aim is to describe proximity of children living in the continental U.S. to a pediatric surgeon with respect to these variations.
Methods
The 2010 American Pediatric Surgical Association member file and the 2010 Decennial Census were used to calculate straight-line distances between pediatric surgeons' zip code centroids and census block centroids.
Results
In 2010, 716 practicing pediatric surgeons were identified, 6,182,882 populated Census blocks were identified, and 73,690,271 children were enumerated. Of white non-Hispanic children, 30.1% lived greater than 40 miles from care. Of Native American children, 40.5% lived more than 60 miles from care. Among children 0–5 years of age, the median (IQR) miles to closest pediatric surgeon was 14.2 (6.2, 39.6), and 3,010,698 of these children lived more than 60 miles from care.
Conclusion
More than 10 million children lived greater than 60 miles from a pediatric surgeon in 2010. Racial, ethnic, age, and urbanization variations in proximity to pediatric surgeons were present. This method is feasible to describe distance-to-care with the upcoming 2020 Decennial Census and may benefit future allocation of pediatric surgeons.
Level of Evidence
IV