Time and distance barriers to mammography facilities in the Atlanta metropolitan area

Abstract

To a great extent, research on geographic accessibility to mammography facilities has focused on urban-rural differences. Spatial accessibility within urban areas can nonetheless pose a challenge, especially for minorities and low-income urban residents who are more likely to depend on public transportation. To examine spatial and temporal accessibility to mammography facilities in the Atlanta metropolitan area by public and private transportation, we built a multimodal transportation network model including bus and rail routes, bus and rail stops, transfers, walk times, and wait times. Our analysis of travel times from the population-weighted centroids of the 282 census tracts in the 2-county area to the nearest facility found that the median public transportation time was almost 51 minutes. We further examined public transportation travel times by levels of household access to a private vehicle. Residents in tracts with the lowest household access to a private vehicle had the shortest travel times, suggesting that facilities were favorably located for women who have to use public transportation. However, census tracts with majority non-Hispanic black populations had the longest travel times for all levels of vehicle availability. Time to the nearest mammography facility would not pose a barrier to women who had access to a private vehicle. This study adds to the literature demonstrating differences in spatial accessibility to health services by race/ethnicity and socioeconomic characteristics. Ameliorating spatial inaccessibility represents an opportunity for intervention that operates at the population level.

Fig. 1

Transportation network, Fulton and DeKalb counties