Geographic Access to Pediatric Retina Specialists in the United States
Catherine K. Liu, Kathryn Achuck, Lucy V. Cobbs, Bita Momenaei, Louis Z. Cai, Sidra Zafar, Rebecca R. Soares, Yoshihiro YonekawaBackground and Objective:
With rising incidence of pediatric retina disease, this study aimed to identify geographic and socioeconomic factors that predict residential access to pediatric retinal specialists.
Patients and Methods:
This cross-sectional, retrospective study identified pediatric retina specialists in the United States and de-identified census tract–level data from public datasets. An origin-destination cost matrix was used to calculate travel time to the closest pediatric vitreoretinal specialist.
Results:
Factors associated with greater travel burden to the nearest pediatric retinal specialist included residing in census tracts that were rural (
Conclusions:
Counties with higher incidences of very low birth weight infants experience reduced travel durations to pediatric retina specialists. However, residents in rural, low-income, low-education census tracts, particularly in Southern regions, face greater travel burdens.