Abstract
BackgroundPoor access to doctors at times of need remains a significant impediment to achieving good health for many rural residents. The two-step floating catchment area (2SFCA) method has emerged as a key tool for measuring healthcare access in rural areas. However, the choice of catchment size, a key component of the 2SFCA method, is problematic because little is known about the distance tolerance of rural residents for health-related travel. Our study sought new evidence to test the hypothesis that residents of sparsely settled rural areas are prepared to travel further than residents of closely settled rural areas when accessing primary health care at times of need.MethodsA questionnaire survey of residents in five small rural communities of Victoria and New South Wales in Australia was used. The two outcome measures were current travel time to visit their usual doctor and maximum time prepared to travel to visit a doctor, both for non-emergency care. Kaplan-Meier charts were used to compare the association between increased distance and decreased travel propensity for closely-settled and sparsely-settled areas, and ordinal multivariate regression models tested significance after controlling for health-related travel moderating factors and town clustering.ResultsA total of 1079 questionnaires were completed with 363 from residents in closely-settled locations and 716 from residents in sparsely-settled areas. Residents of sparsely-settled communities travel, on average, 10 min further than residents of closely-settled communities (26.3 vs 16.9 min, p < 0.001), though this difference was not significant after controlling for town clustering. Differences were more apparent in terms of maximum time prepared to travel (54.1 vs 31.9 min, p < 0.001). Differences of maximum time remained significant after controlling for demographic and other constraints to access, such as transport availability or difficulties getting doctor appointments, as well as after controlling for town clustering and current travel times.ConclusionsImproved geographical access remains a key issue underpinning health policies designed to improve the provision of rural primary health care services. This study provides empirical evidence that travel behaviour should not be implicitly assumed constant amongst rural populations when modelling access through methods like the 2SFCA.
Highlights
Poor access to doctors at times of need remains a significant impediment to achieving good health for many rural residents
While access is a complex concept [10, 11], for health care consumers living in rural areas a key component of good access to health services is minimising the geographical barriers of distance and isolation, when rural residents are required to travel outside of their immediate town to access health care
This persistent problem reflects many professional and personal factors facing doctors who work and live in rural communities, including ‘unsociable’ working conditions characterised by longer hours, oncall or after hours; difficulties associated with professional isolation such as taking leave from work, a lack or peer support, and limited access to professional development; and disinterest in living and raising their family in a rural area, often due to lack of employment opportunities for professional partners or poorer education choices for school-aged children [13, 16,17,18,19]
Summary
Poor access to doctors at times of need remains a significant impediment to achieving good health for many rural residents. Despite numerous incentive policies offered by governments of many countries for some time, the recruitment and retention of doctors in small, often isolated, rural communities remains difficult [13,14,15] This persistent problem reflects many professional and personal factors facing doctors who work and live in rural communities, including ‘unsociable’ working conditions characterised by longer hours, oncall or after hours; difficulties associated with professional isolation such as taking leave from work, a lack or peer support, and limited access to professional development; and disinterest in living and raising their family in a rural area, often due to lack of employment opportunities for professional partners or poorer education choices for school-aged children [13, 16,17,18,19]
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