WIP 111 - The Impact of Urban Sprawl: Transportation Barriers Faced by Patients in a General Pediatrics Clinic

Poster Number: WIP 111
Publication Number: WIP 111.866

Background: No or limited transportation is a major barrier to healthcare access that prevents residents from utilizing community resources and attending medical appointments. The impact of limited transportation on healthcare access is exacerbated by urban sprawl, the tendency for an urban area to grow geographically more rapidly than it grows in population. Urban sprawl poses unique challenges to transportation due to low-population density, spread-out development, inefficient public transportation, overreliance on expensive private transportation, decreased labor productivity/wages, and fragmented communities. While the current literature regarding transportation barriers to pediatric healthcare access primarily focuses on densely populated cities or rural areas, the barriers in cities experiencing urban sprawl remain unclear.

Objective: We evaluate the social determinants of health, transportation access, and appointment attendance among patients of UT Le Bonheur Pediatric Specialists (ULPS) General Pediatrics Clinic in Memphis, Tennessee, in order to determine how urban sprawl influences transportation barriers to healthcare access for pediatric patients so that we can provide resources to address those barriers in a city experiencing urban sprawl.

Design/Methods: We performed a cross-sectional study using data collected between June 2023 and August 2023 from the ULPS General Pediatrics Clinic in Memphis, Tennessee. We created an IRB-approved survey examining participant demographics, social determinants of health, transportation access, attendance at healthcare appointments, knowledge/use of the state Medicaid rideshare program, and participant input regarding ideal solutions to transportation barriers to the clinic. The study population included any guardian or caregiver over the age of 18 accompanying a pediatric patient to their appointment. Descriptive statistics of the 665 participants have been calculated, and future analysis will include comparative statistics and adjusted regression analysis of key transportation and quality of care metrics.