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Geographical Influence of Mobile Clinics in the Southern United States

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Abstract

To develop a mobile clinic influence index, which could allow mobile clinic managers to prioritize geographic regions and allocate resources systematically. The mobile clinic primary care service index was constructed taking into account miles traveled by the mobile clinic, the speed of the mobile clinic, number of primary care providers available in a primary care service area (PCSA), the total population in a PCSA, and the number of primary care providers per mobile clinic program. To illustrate the application of the mobile clinic influence index, we use the case of selected primary care mobile clinic programs operating in North Carolina and Florida. A survey of selected mobile clinic programs from Texas, Georgia, Florida, and North Carolina, in rural and urban zip codes. PCSAs in various counties in North Carolina and Florida experienced varying degrees of additive effects of having mobile clinic providers service these areas. The mobile clinics in these counties were therefore influential in delivering critical primary healthcare services to at-risk populations. The index provides a valuable unit of measure to enable program managers of primary care mobile clinics to allocate resources as needed.

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Acknowledgements

The authors will like to acknowledge the Mobile Health Clinic Association (MHCA) for their role in the data collection. Other organizations and individuals who helped make this work possible include the Harvard Mobile Van, St. David’s Foundation and Texas Children’s Hospital, who were instrumental in the survey development.

Funding

The authors will like to acknowledge the University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston for providing a doctoral dissertation award that supported this research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. TERSHA LLC, Alpharetta, Georgia

    Sharon Attipoe-Dorcoo

  2. Department of Economics and Finance, University of Texas, El Paso, TX, USA

    Rigoberto Delgado

  3. Department of Biostatistics and Data Sciences, University of Texas School of Public Health, Houston, TX, USA

    Dejian Lai

  4. Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Mobile Clinic Program, Houston, TX, USA

    Aditi Gupta

  5. Department of Management, Policy and Community Health, University of Texas School of Public Health, Houston, TX, USA

    Stephen Linder

Authors
  1. Sharon Attipoe-Dorcoo
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  2. Rigoberto Delgado
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  3. Dejian Lai
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  4. Aditi Gupta
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  5. Stephen Linder
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sharon Attipoe-Dorcoo.

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Conflict of Interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest.

Findings in the paper were presented as posters at both the 2019 AcademyHealth and American Evaluation Association conferences.

The authors declare that they have no competing interests. The authors will like to acknowledge the University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston for providing a doctoral dissertation award that supported this research. Each author made substantial contributions to the conception, design, analysis, and interpretation of data, as well as approve the submission.

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Attipoe-Dorcoo, S., Delgado, R., Lai, D. et al. Geographical Influence of Mobile Clinics in the Southern United States. Appl. Spatial Analysis 14, 81–87 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12061-020-09345-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12061-020-09345-4

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