185435 Meeting the Needs of Public Health Preparedness of Rural Health Providers – A Spatial Analysis Approach

Monday, October 27, 2008

Chiehwen Ed Hsu, PhD, MS, MPH , Preventive Health Informatics and SpaTial Analysis (PHISTA) Lab, UT School of Health Information Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX
Francisco Soto Mas, MD, PhD, MPH , Translational Hispanic Health Research Initiative, University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, TX
Fang-Ying Vicki Hsiao, MS , Lab of Preventive Health Informatics and SpaTial Analysis (PHISTA Lab), UT School of Health Information Sciences, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX
Ning Shang, PhD Student , Lab of Preventive Health Informatics and SpaTial Analysis (PHISTA Lab), UT School of Health Information Sciences, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX
Meeting the emergency and response needs of rural communities presents a unique challenge for health providers practicing in these jurisdictions. The primary purpose of this study is to assess whether health providers' confidence and training needs of public health preparedness varied by various Medically Underserved Areas (MUA) designations of their practice in rural Texas. Four type of healthcare providers including physicians, nurses, physician assistants and veterinarians were recruited for this study (N=4,454). Data were collected through a mailed survey. In addition to statistical analysis, GIS mapping and spatial analysis was applied to analyze the data. Response rates averaged 31%. Respondents reported seeing patients with diverse cultural background, and they communicated in more than 16 different languages. Geocoding results identified the geographic areas in which various language-speaking providers are available in the event of emergency. Attribute and spatial queries revealed that, in full MUAs, the experience and confidence of healthcare providers in the diagnosis and treatment of public health emergency declines, while training needs are much higher than those in other MUA designations. The results provide lessons for realigning current preparedness efforts, including the improvement of training and confidence for health providers in rural jurisdictions; correction of inaccurate providers' contact information; and enhancement of moderately low response rates of health providers. These challenges could be overcome by tailoring training to specific rural community's needs, providing incentives and partnering with professional organizations to encourage health providers' participation. In addition, the study provides evidence for potential utility of applying spatial analysis in public health preparedness research and practice.

Learning Objectives:
1. Identify how spatial analysis may contribute to needs assessment of public health preparedness and response. 2. Describe the demographic characteristics of rural healthcare providers who are in need of training, and their preference for training modality. 3. Discuss potential solutions for addressing the level of public health preparedness disparities caused by geographic distribution.

Keywords: Emergency, Rural Health Service Providers

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: PI, first author, and investigator on this project.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.