Ambulance Deserts: Geographic Disparities in the Provision of Ambulance Services
Date:
Duration: approximately
minutes
Access to timely ambulance service is an essential part of the emergency medical system. Yet ambulance access varies widely with significant gaps across the country. During this webinar, Dr. Yvonne Jonk, from the Maine Rural Health Research Center, presented key findings from a new chartbook that analyzes 41 states in 2021-2022 and identifies places and people that are more than 25 minutes from an ambulance station, also called an ambulance desert (AD).
The chartbook presents data on ADs by state and county. Included are maps of AD locations and healthcare facility locations for every state with available data. Given that nine states lacked data on ambulance locations, the number of people living in ADs in the U.S. is likely higher than what was reported here.
Presenter
Yvonne Jonk,
PhD
Dr. Jonk is an Associate Research Professor within the
Department of Public Health at the University of
Southern Maine's Muskie School of Public Service and is
the Deputy Director of the Maine Rural Health Research
Center. As a health economist, Dr. Jonk has over 20
years of experience working within the field of health
services research. Dr. Jonk's areas of specialization
include rural health, access to care, health insurance
coverage, program evaluation, and cost and cost
effectiveness analyses. Dr. Jonk received her PhD in
Applied Economics from the University of Minnesota,
where she conducted research with the Minneapolis VA
Medical Center and the Minnesota Rural Health Research
Center and taught in the Division of Health Policy and
Management at the University of Minnesota.