Accessibility and Availability of Pediatric Primary Care Services: Georgia Estimates

Healthcare Access in Georgia
Data Descriptor

Data descriptor citation:

Gentili, M., Serban, N., Swann, J. "Accessibility and Availability of Pediatric Primary Care: California", published by the Health Analytics Group@GT.

This data descriptor presents small-area estimates for spatial access estimates derived using optimization modeling with access constraints, for the state of Georgia and for year 2013. Estimates are included for both the overall children population (that is, Medicaid-insured, privately-insured and uninsured populations combined) and for the Medicaid-insured population alone. Spatial access measures considered are Accessibility and Availability.

Accessibility pertains to the distance barriers that patients experience in reaching their providers, measured as travel distance. Availability pertains to the providers’ patient volume or time available for healthcare delivery that patients experience when seeking care, measured as congestion experienced at in the provider's office.We also provide the percentage of children who have access, defined here as coverage. The estimates are differentiated for public-insured and private-insured children because of the differences in acceptability of these two insurance types. These estimates can be used to identify locations where to target improvements in spatial access to pediatric primary care and to quantify disparities between public-insured and private-insured children. Similar estimates are also provided for other states available as separate data descriptors, allowing for comparisons between states.


The data file attached with this descriptor includes the following columns:

GEOID10 - The identification number of the census tract
X & Y - latitude and longitude
Coverage - The percentage of children who are matched with a provider (i.e. they have access)
CoverageMED - The percentage of public-insured children who are matched with a provider accepting public insurance
CoveragOTH - The percentage of private-insured children who are matched with a provider
TravelDistance - The average travel distance a child travels to reach his/her primary care provider
TravelDistanceMED - The average travel distance a public-insured  child travels to reach his/her primary care provider accepting public insurance
TravelDistanceOTH - The average travel distance a privately-insured child travels to reach his/her primary care provider
Congestion - The ratio between met need to providers' caseload
CongestionMED - The ratio between met need for public-insured children to providers' Medicaid caseload
CongestionOTH - The ratio between met need for privately-insured children to providers' non-Medicaid caseload

Taxonomy
  • Estimates
  • Access
References

Gentili, M., Isett, K., Serban, N., Swann, J. (2015) "Small-Area Estimation of Spatial Access to Pediatric Primary Care and Its Implications for Policy", Journal of Urban Health, 92(5):864-909.

Gentili, M., Serban, N., O'Connor, J., Swann, J. (2015+) "Quantifying Disparities in Accessibility and Availability of Pediatric Primary Care with Implications for Policy", under revisions.

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