Quantifying Disparities in Accessibility and Availability of Pediatric Primary Care with Implications for Policy Making

• Activity Number: 113
• Type: Invited
• Date/Time: Monday, August 10, 2015 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
• Sponsor: Business and Economic Statistics Section
• Author(s): Monica Gentili and Nicoleta Serban* and Julie Swann
• Companies: Georgia Institute of Technology and Georgia Institute of Technology and Georgia Institute of Technology
• Keywords: service access ; spatial access ; uncertainty quantification ; healthcare ; optimization model

Abstract

To "achieve health equity, eliminate disparities, and improve the health of all population groups" are some of the main goals in Healthy People 2020. It is particularly important to eliminate health disparities among children because investing in pediatric healthcare will have the highest long-term return as it will reduce the burden of the future healthcare costs and it will foster a healthy and productive population. In this research, we focus on measuring accessibility and availability to pediatric primary care among seven states in the U.S. to evaluate disparities between public-insured and private-insured children using optimization modeling. Statistical inference is also used to demonstrate the sensitivity of the model in capturing trends within states derived from estimates at different geographic resolution levels. The overarching objective is to understand the implications in policy decision making on where to focus interventions for improving access and on which type of intervention to consider for more appropriate healthcare delivery, particularly for different population groups differentiated by insurance type.