Measuring spatio-temporal disparity of location-based accessibility to emergency medical services

• Published in: Health & place Vol. 74; p. 102766
• Main Authors: Xiong, Qiangqiang, Liu, Yaolin, Xing, Lijun, Wang, Liye, Ding, Yimei, Liu, Yanfang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Elsevier Ltd 01.03.2022
• Subjects: Competitive effects; Data Collection; Emergency Medical Services; Humans; Location-based accessibility; Spatio-temporal disparity; Competitive effects; Emergency medical services; Spatio-temporal disparity; Location-based accessibility
• ISSN: 1353-8292; 1873-2054; 1873-2054
• DOI: 10.1016/j.healthplace.2022.102766

The importance and sensitivity of the time dimension in the emergency medical service (EMS) field have been widely recognized in recent years. However, the EMS spatio-temporal disparity remains partially uncovered in traditional accessibility measurements due to EMS's context-sensitive characteristics and demand specificity. In this study, we obtained dynamic traffic conditions and realistic EMS demand from online map services and historical emergency calls-out data, and then developed three location-based spatio-temporal EMS accessibility measurements. The empirical results demonstrate that the three different spatio-temporal EMS accessibility have a complex relationship, and are beneficial for measuring the EMS spatio-temporal disparity in different scenarios with distinct competitive effects. Ultimately, we emphasized four original EMS accessibility patterns, which helped us uncover significantly well-served or underserved areas. This study contributes to optimize the layout of EMS resources by understanding the regularity of EMS spatio-temporal disparity. •Dynamic traffic conditions and realistic EMS demand.•Three location-based spatio-temporal accessibility measurements have been developed.•EMS spatio-temporal disparity in different scenarios with distinct competitive effects.•Uncover significantly well-served or underserved areas of EMS.