Travel by public transit to mammography facilities in 6 US urban areas

We examined lack of private vehicle access and 30min or longer public transportation travel time to mammography facilities for women 40 years of age or older in the urban areas of Boston, Philadelphia, San Antonio, San Diego, Denver, and Seattle to identify transit marginalized populations – women for whom these travel characteristics may jointly present a barrier to clinic access. This ecological study used sex and race/ethnicity data from the 2010 US Census and household vehicle availability data from the American Community Survey 2008–2012, all at Census tract level. Using the public transportation option on Google Trip Planner we obtained the travel time from the centroid of each census tract to all local mammography facilities to determine the nearest mammography facility in each urban area. Median travel times by public transportation to the nearest facility for women with no household access to a private vehicle were obtained by ranking travel time by population group across all U.S. census tracts in each urban area and across the entire study area. The overall median travel times for each urban area for women without household access to a private vehicle ranged from a low of 15min in Boston and Philadelphia to 27min in San Diego. The numbers and percentages of transit marginalized women were then calculated for all urban areas by population group. While black women were less likely to have private vehicle access, and both Hispanic and black women were more likely ...
Source: Journal of Transport and Health - Category: Occupational Health Source Type: research