Analyzing disparities in transit-based healthcare accessibility in the Chicago Metropolitan Area

Abstract

Public transit is indispensable for car-free households to access healthcare. Meanwhile, different households have unequal transit-based healthcare accessibility due to different socio-economic factors such as race/ethnicity and car ownership. Few studies have comprehensively explored the inequality in transit-based healthcare accessibility by integrating both racial/ethnic inequity and car ownership. This study fills the gap with an up-to-date analysis of transit-based healthcare accessibility in the Chicago Metropolitan Area at the census tract level. The results show that the percentage of car-free households is positively related to transit-based healthcare accessibility; while a higher percentage of minorities (i.e., Black/Hispanic) is negatively related to transit-based healthcare accessibility. Among all neighbourhoods with higher percentages of higher-than-average car-free households, Hispanic-majority neighbourhoods fare the worst; while White-majority neighbourhoods have much better healthcare accessibility than both Black-majority and Hispanic-majority neighbourhoods.