NDLI: The rural tax: comprehensive out-of-pocket costs associated with patient travel in British Columbia

Content Provider	Springer Nature : BioMed Central
Author	Kornelsen, Jude Khowaja, Asif Raza Av-Gay, Gal Sullivan, Eva Parajulee, Anshu Dunnebacke, Marjorie Egan, Dorothy Balas, Mickey Williamson, Peggy
Abstract	Background A significant concern for rural patients is the cost of travel outside of their community for specialist and diagnostic care. Often, these costs are transferred to patients and their families, who also experience stress associated with traveling for care. We sought to examine the rural patient experience by (1) estimating and categorizing the various out of pocket costs associated with traveling for healthcare and (2) describing and measuring patient stress and other experiences associated with traveling to seek care, specifically in relation to household income. Methods We have designed and administered an online, retrospective, cross-sectional survey seeking to estimate the out-of-pocket (OOP) costs and personal experiences of rural patients associated with traveling to access health care in British Columbia. Respondents were surveyed across five categories: Distance Traveled and Transportation Costs, Accommodation Costs, Co-Traveler Costs, Lost Wages, and Patient Stress. Bivariate relationships between respondent household income and other numerical findings were investigated using one-way ANOVA. Results On average, costs for respondents were $856 and $674 for transport and accommodation, respectively. Strong relationships were found to exist between the distance traveled and total transport costs, as well as between a patient’s stress and their household income. Patient perspectives obtained from this survey expressed several related issues, including the physical and psychosocial impacts of travel as well as delayed or diminished care seeking. Conclusions These key findings highlight the existing inequities between rural and urban patient access to health care and how these inequities are exacerbated by a patient’s overall travel-distance and financial status. This study can directly inform policy related efforts towards mitigating the rural-urban gap in access to health care.
Related Links	https://bmchealthservres.biomedcentral.com/counter/pdf/10.1186/s12913-021-06833-2.pdf
Ending Page	17
Page Count	17
Starting Page	1
File Format	HTM / HTML
ISSN	14726963
DOI	10.1186/s12913-021-06833-2
Journal	BMC Health Services Research
Issue Number	1
Volume Number	21
Language	English
Publisher	BioMed Central
Publisher Date	2021-08-21
Access Restriction	Open
Subject Keyword	Public Health Health Administration Health Informatics Nursing Research Rural and remote health Patient transportation Out of pocket costs Access to care Barriers to health care Health disparities
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Health Policy

Sl.	Authority	Responsibilities	Communication Details
1	Ministry of Education (GoI), Department of Higher Education	Sanctioning Authority	https://www.education.gov.in/ict-initiatives
2	Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	Host Institute of the Project: The host institute of the project is responsible for providing infrastructure support and hosting the project	https://www.iitkgp.ac.in
3	National Digital Library of India Office, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	The administrative and infrastructural headquarters of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in
4	Project PI / Joint PI	Principal Investigator and Joint Principal Investigators of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in Prof. Saswat Chakrabarti will be added soon
5	Website/Portal (Helpdesk)	Queries regarding NDLI and its services	support@ndl.gov.in
6	Contents and Copyright Issues	Queries related to content curation and copyright issues	content@ndl.gov.in
7	National Digital Library of India Club (NDLI Club)	Queries related to NDLI Club formation, support, user awareness program, seminar/symposium, collaboration, social media, promotion, and outreach	clubsupport@ndl.gov.in
8	Digital Preservation Centre (DPC)	Assistance with digitizing and archiving copyright-free printed books	dpc@ndl.gov.in
9	IDR Setup or Support	Queries related to establishment and support of Institutional Digital Repository (IDR) and IDR workshops	idr@ndl.gov.in

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