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COVID-19 test sites in Victoria approaching Stage 4 restrictions: evaluating the relationship between remoteness, travel time and population serviced

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posted on 2022-01-14, 03:18 authored by Ali LakhaniAli Lakhani, Dennis WollersheimDennis Wollersheim
Objective: In Australia, people residing remotely typically experience increased travel time to health services, and remote health services often have unfavourable population-to-provider ratios. The state of Victoria was treated as a case study and a spatial analysis investigated the impact of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) point-of-care-test (POCT) site location (Major City, Inner Regional or Outer Regional) on the mean travel time for closest residents and the number of closest residents. Methods: A network analysis established the travel time from every mesh block in Victoria to the closest POCT site. Inferential analyses investigated the impact of POCT site location on travel time and the number of closest residents. Results: Compared to urban locations, the mean travel time for closest residents to rural POCT sites was significantly higher, while rural POCT sites had significantly fewer residents to service. Conclusions: Findings confirm Australian health service literature suggesting that rural regions have poorer proximate availability of health services, while also contrasting to literature indicating that Australian rural regions have fewer health services per capita. Implications for public health: Localities within outer regional Victoria are candidates for a localised response to reduce unnecessary travel. Employing innovative service models may improve health service access and use and reduce population-to-provider ratios in rural locations.

Funding

This research was funded by a La Trobe University, College of Science, Health and Engineering Start-Up Grant. The techniques used in this research draw on the EpidorosTM framework, first developed by Griffith University in 2008 in partnership with Metro South Health and Esri Australia with additional funding from the Australian Research Council and the Motor Accident Insurance Commission Qld. Dr Ali Lakhani would like to acknowledge that Professor Elizabeth Kendall has encouraged and advocated for the use of spatial methods in light of COVID-19.

History

Publication Date

2021-12-01

Journal

Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health

Volume

45

Issue

6

Pagination

(p. 628-636)

Publisher

WILEY

ISSN

1326-0200

Rights Statement

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

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