Transportation barriers to mammography screening clinics in the Atlanta, Georgia metropolitan area

Many studies have described distance as a barrier to breast cancer screening and treatment for rural areas. However, less is known about time and distance as a barrier to mammography facilities in urban areas where many women are dependent upon public transportation for access to care. Using GIS methods, we examined spatial and temporal accessibility to mammography facilities for residents living in economically disadvantaged areas in two Atlanta, Georgia metropolitan area counties.

Census 2000 data was used to characterize census tracts with economically disadvantaged female populations. Dasymetric mapping techniques were used to create weighted population centroids within the census tracts and to eliminate zones of zero population. A multimodal transportation network was built to calculate travel times and distance from each centroid to the nearest mammography facility. We compared travel times of census tracts in which women are more likely to use public transportation to tracts in more affluent areas in which women are more likely to use private transportation.

Preliminary results show transportation time may pose a barrier to mammography screening for economically disadvantaged women in Atlanta. There is a strong correlation (r=0.912) between poverty and no private vehicle availability. This suggests that impoverished women must rely on public transportation for access to mammography clinics. Using GIS, we will geographically describe time and distance barriers to facilities by levels of poverty as well as by race and ethnicity. These results will be useful in determining new locations for facilities to better serve low-income women who depend on public transportation.