An age-integrated approach to improve measurement of potential spatial accessibility to emergency medical services for urban areas

Objective: This study aimed to develop an age‐included approach to measure the potential accessibility to Emergency medical services (EMS) across urban and suburban areas of Mashhad city in Iran. Methods: We used an improved version of two‐step floating catchment area (2SFCA) and enhanced 2SFCA (E2SFCA) methods to measure the potential accessibility to EMS services with inclusion of age factor. This enabled us to better model accessibility of the older population to the EMS. We used 22 800 records of EMS enquiries from July to September 2018 to evaluate and assess the potential improvement in access to the EMS with incorporating age in the model. Results: Suburb areas had less potential accessibility compared with central urban due to the high density of EMS stations in the city center areas. Our model showed slight improvement in potential accessibility measurement as a result of the proposed age‐integrated method. Conclusion: An age‐integrated index of accessibility method takes into account the age distribution of the population in service area is highly associated with actual measures of accessibility to EMS services. Identifying areas with poor access to EMS will help policymakers to design better policy planning to allocate resources and improve provision of EMS services.This project is funded by Mashhad University of Medical Sciences (grant number 970861

A model development on GIS-driven data to predict temporal daily collision through integrating Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) algorithms; case study: Tehran-Qazvin freeway

The aim of this study is to develop a model to predict temporal daily collision by integrating of Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) algorithms. As a case study, the integrated model was tested on 1097 daily traffic collisions data of Karaj-Qazvin freeway from 2009 to 2013 and the results were compared with the conventional ANN prediction model. In this method, initially, the raw collision data were analyzed, normalized, and classified via Geographical Information System (GIS). Partial Autocorrelation Function (PACF) was also utilized to evaluate the temporal autocorrelation for consecutive existing daily data. The results of this study showed that the proposed integrated DWT-ANN method provided higher predictive accuracy in daily traffic collision than ANN model by increasing coefficient of determination (R2) from 0.66 to 0.82

An age‐integrated approach to improve measurement of potential spatial accessibility to emergency medical services for urban areas

Objective: This study aimed to develop an age‐included approach to measure the potential accessibility to Emergency medical services (EMS) across urban and suburban areas of Mashhad city in Iran. Methods: We used an improved version of two‐step floating catchment area (2SFCA) and enhanced 2SFCA (E2SFCA) methods to measure the potential accessibility to EMS services with inclusion of age factor. This enabled us to better model accessibility of the older population to the EMS. We used 22 800 records of EMS enquiries from July to September 2018 to evaluate and assess the potential improvement in access to the EMS with incorporating age in the model. Results: Suburb areas had less potential accessibility compared with central urban due to the high density of EMS stations in the city center areas. Our model showed slight improvement in potential accessibility measurement as a result of the proposed age‐integrated method. Conclusion: An age‐integrated index of accessibility method takes into account the age distribution of the population in service area is highly associated with actual measures of accessibility to EMS services. Identifying areas with poor access to EMS will help policymakers to design better policy planning to allocate resources and improve provision of EMS services.This project is funded by Mashhad University of Medical Sciences (grant number 970861

Multiple-scale spatial analysis of paediatric, pedestrian road traffic injuries in a major city in North-Eastern Iran 2015-2019

Background: Paediatric, pedestrian road traffic injuries (PPRTIs) constitute a major cause of premature death in Iran. Identification of high-risk areas would be the primary step in designing policy intervention for PPRTI reduction because environmental factors play a significant role in these events. The present study aims to determine high-risk areas for PPRTIs at three different geographical scales, including the grid network, the urban neighbourhood and the street levels in Mashhad, Iran during the period 2015–2019. Methods: This cross-sectional retrospective study was based on all pedestrian accidents with motor vehicles involving children (less than 18 years of age) between March 2015 and March 2019 in the city of Mashhad, which is the second-most populous city in Iran. The Anselin Local Moran’s I statistic and Getis-Ord Gi* were performed to measure spatial autocorrelation and hotspots of PPRTIs at the geographical grid network and neighbourhood level. Furthermore, a spatial buffer analysis was used to classify the streets according to their PPRTI rate. Results: A total of 7390 PPRTIs (2364 females and 4974 males) were noted during the study period. The children’s mean age was 9.7 ± 5.1 years. Out of the total PPRTIs, 43% occurred on or at the sides of the streets, 25 of which labelled high-risk streets. A high-high cluster of PPRTI was discovered in the eastern part of the city, while there was a low-low such cluster in the West. Additionally, in the western part of the city, older children were more likely to become injured, while in the north-eastern and south-eastern parts, younger children were more often the victims. Conclusions: Spatial analysis of PPRTIs in an urban area was carried out at three different geographical scales: the grid network, the neighbourhood and the street level. The resulting documentation contributes reliable support for the implementation and prioritization of preventive strategies, such as improvement of the highrisk streets and neighbourhoods of the city that should lead to decreasing numbers of PPRTIs.This study was funded by Mashhad University of Medical Sciences (fund number: 970733)