Purpose: Canada is the second largest country in the world, with most of the population located in the southern-most portion of its geography. We sought to define the relative distribution of pediatric surgeons to potential pediatric patients using data from the Canadian census.
Methods: The 2011 Canadian Census and a convenience sample of current Canadian pediatric surgeons were used to calculate straight-line distances between pediatric surgeon postal code centroids and census dissemination block centroids.
Results: Currently, there are 74 practicing pediatric surgeons in Canada; 493,345 populated census blocks were identified, and 7,752,075 children were enumerated. The median (IQR) kilometers to the closest pediatric surgeon was 27.99 (11.35, 85.47) kilometers, and 22.7% of Canadian children lived more than 100 km from care. Nearly 13% of children lived greater than 200 km from the nearest pediatric surgeon.
Conclusion: More than 1.7 million Canadian children, nearly one quarter of all Canadian children, live greater than 100 km from the closest pediatric surgeon. This identifies a disparate group of patients who do not have an equal access-to-care as compared to others in the country.
Level of evidence: Level IV.
Keywords: Access to surgical care; Distance-to-care; Geographic proximity; Healthcare disparity.
Published by Elsevier Inc.