Population Accessibility to Radiotherapy Services in New South Wales Region of Australia: a methodological contribution

Mini EURO Conference on Improving Healthcare: new challenges, new approaches

物理学;医药卫生

Shukla, Nagesh^1 ; Wickramasuriya, Rohan^1 ; Miller, Andrew^1,2 ; Perez, Pascal^1

SMART Infrastructure Facility, Engineering and Information Sciences, University of Wollongong, Wollongong

NSW

2522, Australia^1

Illawarra Cancer Care Centre, Wollongong Hospital, Wollongong

NSW

2500, Australia^2

关键词: Cancer radiotherapies;    Demographic profile;    Epidemiological studies;    Integrated modelling;    Methodological contributions;    New South Wales , Australia;    Population demographies;    Radiotherapy treatment;   

Others  :  https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/616/1/012004/pdf
DOI  :  10.1088/1742-6596/616/1/012004

学科分类：卫生学

来源: IOP

【 摘 要 】

This paper proposes an integrated modelling process to assess the population accessibility to radiotherapy treatment services in future based on future cancer incidence and road network-based accessibility. Previous research efforts assessed travel distance/time barriers affecting access to cancer treatment services, as well as epidemiological studies that showed that cancer incidence rates vary with population demography. It is established that travel distances to treatment centres and demographic profiles of the accessible regions greatly influence the demand for cancer radiotherapy (RT) services. However, an integrated service planning approach that combines spatially-explicit cancer incidence projections, and the RT services accessibility based on patient road network have never been attempted. This research work presents this novel methodology for the accessibility assessment of RT services and demonstrates its viability by modelling New South Wales (NSW) cancer incidence rates for different age-sex groups based on observed cancer incidence trends; estimating the road network-based access to current NSW treatment centres; and, projecting the demand for RT services in New South Wales, Australia from year 2011 to 2026.