title: Method paper--distance and travel time to casualty clinics in Norway based on crowdsourced postcode coordinates: a comparison with other methods.
abstract: We describe a method that uses crowdsourced postcode coordinates and Google maps to estimate average distance and travel time for inhabitants of a municipality to a casualty clinic in Norway. The new method was compared with methods based on population centroids, median distance and town hall location, and we used it to examine how distance affects the utilisation of out-of-hours primary care services. At short distances our method showed good correlation with mean travel time and distance. The utilisation of out-of-hours services correlated with postcode based distances similar to previous research. The results show that our method is a reliable and useful tool for estimating average travel distances and travel times.
authors.affiliation: National Centre for Emergency Primary Health Care, Uni Health, Uni Research, Bergen, Norway.
authors.forename: Guttorm
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Raknes
authors.affiliation: National Centre for Emergency Primary Health Care, Uni Health, Uni Research, Bergen, Norway ; Department of Global Public Health and Primary Care, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway.
authors.forename: Steinar
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hunskaar
mesh_terms: D002947:Cities; D063045:Crowdsourcing / Q000379:methods*; D006297:Health Services Accessibility; D017711:Nonlinear Dynamics; D009664:Norway; D012017:Referral and Consultation; D012044:Regression Analysis; D013997:Time Factors; D014195:Travel