Population-level Spatial Access to Prehospital Care by the National Ambulance Service in Ghana.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Conditions requiring emergency treatment disproportionately affect low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where there is often insufficient prehospital care capacity. To inform targeted prehospital care development in Ghana, we aimed to describe spatial access to formal prehospital care services and identify ambulance stations for capacity expansion.

Methods

Cost distance methods were used to evaluate areal and population-level access to prehospital care within 30 and 60 minutes of each of the 128 ambulance stations in Ghana. With network analysis methods, a two-step floating catchment area model was created to identify district-level variability in access. Districts without NAS stations within their catchment areas were identified as candidates for an addition

SUBMITTER: Tansley G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5153373 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Nov-Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature