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SSCI 583: Spatial Analysis

PROJECT 3 – ACCESSIBILITY ANALYSIS

Proposed Workflow submitted to Discussion Forum Due: March 5, 11:59pm PT (workflow workshop on March 6)

Project Report (which contains revised/finalized workflow) submitted to Project 3

Assignment link Due: March 13 (one week after the workshop on March 6), 11:59pm PT

ASSIGNMENT DESCRIPTION

For Project 3, you will assess accessibility to health care services for residents of San Francisco County using the 2-Step Floating Catchment Area method (2SFCA). You have flexibility as to your specific target population and type of facility. For example, you could assess accessibility to family clinics for children. Or, you could assess elder residents’ accessibility to senior clinics. I have shared a census data set that contains the numbers of residents per block group by sex and age. I have also shared a data set that contains the locations of health care facilities in San Francisco along with the type of clinic.

You will work with a partner for this assignment (unless you prefer to work on your own). The expectation is that you will each complete 50% of the technical work and 50% of the writing of the report.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• Design a methodology to run a 2SFCA analysis

• Choose and employ appropriate distance and network analysis tools in ArcGIS Pro to assess accessibility to health care

• Create finished maps which clearly identify the results of accessibility analyses

• Critically assess and compare the results from an accessibility analysis for different areas

• Write a succinct description of accessibility analyses and results

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Review helpful background information, such as the following. You can draw on these as you find helpful.

• Readings identified in Reading and Research Discussion 3.

The required and suggested readings for RRD3 each employ the 2SFCA or the E2SFCA method. Close readings of the methods are recommended.

• Luo, W. and Qi, Y. 2009. An enhanced two-step floating catchment area (E2SFCA) method for measuring spatial accessibility to primary care physicians. Health & Place, 15(4), pp.1100-1107.

This article describes the popular two-step floating catchment area (2SFCA) method for measuring spatial accessibility and builds upon the method by considering distance decay in the assessment of catchments.

• Esri. Common table and attribute tasks, and the linked page on Fundamentals of field calculations.

• Esri. An overview of the Network Analysis toolset.

• Esri An overview of the Network Dataset toolset.

2. Skim the following SSI MS GIST theses, focusing on methods as described in each thesis’s literature review and methodology chapters:

• Becker, C. 2016. A Spatial Analysis of Veteran Healthcare. (Master’s Thesis, University of Southern California).

This thesis employs the E2SFCA method to measure veterans’ accessibility to US Department of Veteran’s Affairs (VA) health facilities (which provide health care to US veterans) in one VA administrative region. The demand for service was assessed as the number of veterans within a census tract, located at the centroid of the tract. The catchments were defined by a 60-minute drive time. VA health facilities were weighted in a novel way: Instead of using a distance decay, the study employed wait-times for health care appointments as a measure of impedance, because veterans were more likely to visit health centers with shorter wait-times.

• Dixon, G. 2019. An Exploratory Spatial Analysis of Fire Service and EMS Accessibility in Northeastern Illinois Communities. (Master’s Thesis, University of Southern California).

This study uses the 2SFCA method to assess accessibility of fire stations in a suburban neighborhood. The population consisted of numbers of calls for emergency service aggregated to the census tract, rather than a true population count. Demand catchments were measured from the census tract centroid, and supply catchments from the fire-stations, using 6-, 8-, and 10- minute drive times.

• Li Sarain, A.Y. 2019. Providing A New Low-Cost Primary Care Facility for Under-Served Communities: A Site Suitability Analysis for Service Planning Area 6 in Los Angeles County, California . University of Southern California (Master’s Thesis).

This study uses the 2SFCA method to assess how accessibility of health care in South Los Angeles would change with the addition of a new health clinic. It is employed as the second step in a site-suitability analysis. The study assesses travel time for drawing catchments by both private car and public transportation.

3. Review the following short Esri web courses. Esri offers a number of web courses that will help you understand how networks are created and used in ArcGIS to measure distances, identify optimal routes, and assess service areas using a network. You can find the following web courses from the main Esri Training website. None of these specifically implement the full workflow of a 2SFCA, but they will help you understand how to complete certain required steps of the 2SFCA (notable drawing catchments, also called “service areas”).

• Preparing for Network Analysis:

https://www.esri.com/training/catalog/57630434851d31e02a43ef58/preparing-for-network-analysis/

• Generating Service Areas Using ArcGIS Pro:

https://www.esri.com/training/catalog/57bcfdd581e455607e4a59aa/generating-service-areas-using-arcgis-pro/

4. Inspect your data. The following data is available on the course Brightspage (Assignments Module) and on H: drive at 583/SF_Accessibility.gdb. If you choose to focus on a sub-population that you cannot identify from the given data, you are welcome to import your own data. If you use your own data, you may need to prepare it for your analysis (clip to relevant boundary; project data; etc.)

• SF_BlockGroups_Sex_Age_2019ACS: a polygon feature class of US Census block groups joined with US Census tabular data of population numbers per block group by sex and age (Source: US Census)

• SF_Health_Care_Facilities: a point feature class of medical facilities within SF County (Source: DataSF)

The above layers have been projected into NAD 1983 State Plane CA III (2011) FIPS 0404 Feet.

5. Determine your analytical workflows. After reading the required article and theses, reviewing the web courses, and inspecting your data, write out a step-by-step method for implementing the 2SFCA analysis for your chosen scenario.

A 2SFCA analysis can be implemented by drawing service areas (catchments) in ArcGIS identifying population points (step 1) and service providers (step 2) within them. However, the concept of the floating catchment can also be implemented without drawing catchments. For instance, Bryant and Delamater (2019) calculated the distance from population points to park entrances and compiled a table of routes less than 1 mile to complete their workflow. In essence, they “draw 1-mile catchments” without actually drawing the catchment boundary. The main work of this project is to figure out how to implement the 2SFCA method in ArcGIS and perhaps an outside spreadsheet program.

In addition to your choice of health care service and population, as described in the introduction, you must choose what mode of transportation and type of catchment areas you will use. San Francisco is a much smaller area than Los Angeles, so you could assess accessibility by walking. In this case, you could choose a smaller distance boundary (i.e., one mile) or use walking as the mode of travel if you draw catchments in ArcGIS Pro. If you assume travel by a private automobile, you would want to choose a different boundary limit (and determine vehicle ownership). Draw on related literature to help you make a choice that is meaningful. For instance, a five- or ten-minute drive-time catchment is not credible in the context of health care accessibility since people are more likely to travel for health care than for a cup of coffee, for instance.

6. Write up and share your proposed workflows. Create a short summary of your workflow and post to the appropriate discussion forum (one per partnership) (1.5 pts.)

1. (If neither partner can attend the synchronous session) Put “NON-SYNCHRONOUS” in the subject line of the post. This only applies to non-residential students. Residential students are expected to attend the workshop in person.

2. Explain the steps you’ll take to achieve the intended results. Supplement the textual description with one of more workflow diagrams.

• Be as specific as possible to receive more refined comments on your plan.

• Refer to specific actions and tools in ArcGIS for each step. Do not list a step with language such as, “identify population of children with a 1-mile catchment of health care locations”. Instead write out HOW you would achieve this goal, with specific reference to tools and calculations.

7. Workshop your workflows/initial results with your classmates. For residential students, each partner must attend the workshop in person. For non-residential students, each partner must EITHER attend the synchronous class session to collaborate with classmates to improve each other’s work; OR review the workflows submitted by other students who cannot attend the synchronous session and offer feedback in the Discussion Forum to at least three teams. (1.5 pts.)

8. Revise your proposed workflows as necessary.

9. Run the accessibility analysis, per your revised workflows and prepare at least one finished map of your results.

WARNING: Creating Service Areas in ArcGIS Pro uses a lot of Esri credits. SSI students are allotted a certain number of credits, and if you start running this tool over and over, you’ll quickly use up all your credits. Therefore, only run the tool once you are sure of your data and parameters. If you do use up your allotment, send an email to me, and we can request that more credits be given to you. This can take up to a day, so it is best to avoid it if possible.

10. Assess your results. What do the results mean in the real world? How is the MAUP implicated in your analysis?

11. Write up your results in a short report. This should be a finished report, using high-quality language, free of spelling and grammatical errors, citing to sources as necessary. Write out prose in complete sentences for each section; do not just use bullet points. All text must be in your own words – no quotations, even properly cited ones. The report need only be long enough to thoughtfully respond to the listed topics for each of the following sections:

1. Introduction. Briefly describe the concept of accessibility, the goals of your project, and your methods. (.5 pt.)

2. Study area. Describe the area of your study and provide a basic, finished map of the distribution of your chosen population across the city and the location of relevant health care facilities. (1 pt.)

3. Methods. Description of steps for your workflow, including any data preparation. Include a data table to summarize your data and data sources. Include a workflow diagram for your analysis, breaking it down into clear steps. Thus, you should not have a step of “Implement 2SFCA”; Instead, you should identify the steps you took in order to employ the 2SFCA.

Your written description should explain your choices – i.e. Which tool did you choose and why? If there were any issues with edge effects of other MAUP issues, what were they and how did you address them? You must describe your methods in words, not just point the reader to your diagrams. Cite to any readings or other sources as necessary to explain your choices. (5 pts.)

4. Results. Description of the results of your analysis, including finished maps. Maps are not sufficient here; you must describe the results of your analysis in your text and describe what your maps show. (2.5 pts.)

5. Discussion. Critical assessment of the meaning and utility of your results.

Explain what your results mean in the real world.

Include an assessment of how the MAUP is implicated in your analysis.

Identify any other limitations in your methods and results, such as edge effects or other analytical issues or data issues. You can also be creative in how you assess your results. You could circle back to the related literature (from discussion assignments or your own research) and compare your results with those obtained in case studies you reviewed.

Offer your own assessment of the real-world utility of the 2SFCA method. What does this method help us understand about health care accessibility and what does it ignore? (2.5 pts.)

6. Reference list. Offer a list of full academic citations to the sources you cited throughout your document. (.5 pt)

7. Appendix. Each partner must itemize their contribution to the overall effort, with each aiming for 50% technical and 50% written contribution. (No points for this, but points may be deducted if the work is not split in this type of way.)