Equity in Health-Seeking Behavior of Groups Using Different Transportations

Abstract

The equity of health-seeking behaviors of groups using different transportations is an important metric for health outcome disparities among them. Recently, smart card data and taxi trajectory data have been used extensively but separately to quantify the spatiotemporal patterns of health-seeking behavior and healthcare accessibility. However, the differences in health-seeking behavior among groups by different transportations have hitherto received scant attention from scholars. To fill the gap, this paper aimed to investigate the equity in health-seeking behavior of groups using different transportations. With sets of spatial and temporal constraints, we first extracted health-seeking behaviors by bus and taxi from smart card data and taxi trajectory data from Beijing during 13–17 April 2015. Then, health-seeking behaviors of groups by bus and taxi were compared regarding the coverage of hospital service areas, time efficiency to seek healthcare, and transportation access. The results indicated that there are inequities in groups using different travel modes to seek healthcare regarding the coverage of hospital service areas, time efficiency to seek healthcare, and transportation access. They provide some suggestions for mode-specific interventions to narrow health disparity, which might be more efficient than a one-size-fits-all intervention.