Administrative Health Data for Transportation Planning: An Application for Quantifying Health Travel Demands of Older Adults (age 65+) in New Brunswick, Canada
Older adults (age 65+) living in car-dependent jurisdictions face major challenges: there is an increasing need to access health services with age, and the car may be the only realistic option; the health effects of aging can make driving difficult or impossible over time. The challenge for policy-makers has been to understand what the impacts of this might be on healthcare access, but they may lack a baseline understanding of how and where older adults travel for different types of healthcare. While surveys can provide some valuable information, they may lack the resolution in terms of revealed behaviour to support the development of alternatives to driving oneself. This research assessed the feasibility of using administrative data from the New Brunswick (Canada) Department of Health and accessed through the New Brunswick Institute for Research, Data and Training (NB-IRDT) for understanding travel mobility of rural older adults in New Brunswick (aged 65+) for health purposes. Six years of data were analyzed for 171,467 hospital visits and 2,618,614 physician visits associated with 1439 origin areas as and 104 health facilities and 803 physician destinations), resulting in 1.2 million Origin-Destination pairs. It was possible associate demographic attributes (age & gender) with visit type and frequency and over-the-road travel distances, providing insight into healthcare access at a resolution not previously available in New Brunswick. This approach can be useful in quantifying demand for non-emergency health transportation.
- Record URL:
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Supplemental Notes:
- This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AME70 Standing Committee on Transportation and Public Health.
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Corporate Authors:
Transportation Research Board
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Authors:
- Hanson, Trevor
- Morehouse, Brianna
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Conference:
- Transportation Research Board 102nd Annual Meeting
- Location: Washington DC, United States
- Date: 2023-1-8 to 2023-1-12
- Date: 2023
Language
- English
Media Info
- Media Type: Digital/other
- Features: Maps; References; Tables;
- Pagination: 17p
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Accessibility; Aged; Automobile travel; Health care; Rural areas; Transportation planning
- Geographic Terms: New Brunswick, Canada
- Subject Areas: Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Society;
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 01875126
- Record Type: Publication
- Report/Paper Numbers: TRBAM-23-00113
- Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
- Created Date: Feb 28 2023 5:05PM