Online Program Home
My Program

Abstract Details

Activity Number: 537 - SPEED: Infectious Disease, Environmental Epidemiology, and Diet
Type: Contributed
Date/Time: Wednesday, August 1, 2018 : 10:30 AM to 11:15 AM
Sponsor: Section for Statistical Programmers and Analysts
Abstract #332582
Title: Impact of Distance Calculation Methods on Geospatial Analysis of Healthcare Access
Author(s): Sarah Lotspeich* and Robert E. Johnson
Companies: Vanderbilt University and Vanderbilt University
Keywords: Semivariograms; Kriging; Primary Care
Abstract:

The CDC publishes the CHSI dataset, providing county-level key health indicators for the United States. The current analysis focuses on the density of primary care physicians per 100,000 people as a gauge of healthcare access in a subset of 878 counties in Tennessee. Access to primary care may be measured by travel distance or travel time. We investigate the implications of travel time and two distance measures: travel distance and travel time using the Google Maps API and shortest distance ("as the crow flies") using the Haversine formula. These measures were used to create empirically estimated (classical) semivariograms. We utilized ordinary kriging methods (OK) to interpolate the density of primary care physicians in the areas between the geographic centroids of the counties (three analyses total). We will compare kriged results between the three methods, illustrate results with maps, and explore the relationships between travel distance/time and Haversine distance.


Authors who are presenting talks have a * after their name.

Back to the full JSM 2018 program