Simplified Method for Evaluating the Impact of a Transportation Network on Posthurricane Access to Healthcare Facilities
Publication: Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities
Volume 30, Issue 1
Abstract
To estimate the impact of Hurricane Ike of 2008 on local communities, service areas of hospitals and corresponding service populations were calculated at both the county and facility levels within the Houston metropolitan statistical area. A hospital access indicator was defined to measure the level of access to medical services when compared to the prestorm level. The result indicated that the hospital access indicator reached its lowest value on the next day after the hurricane landfall due to lane closures and hospital shutdowns before showing a steady comeback. However, the recovery was briefly interrupted around September 18, 2008, as a result of road closures to remove debris on State Highway 146. Access to hospitals nearly returned to the prestorm level by the end of October 2008. Simulations were then performed to identify priorities for repairing damaged roads in order to minimize storm’s adverse impact. This paper offered a simplified method to measure, monitor, and analyze the effect of transportation network on access to healthcare facilities in the aftermath of a hurricane. Since only a small number of publicly available variables were required, the method could be applied to other catastrophic events in support of disaster response and recovery decisions.
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Acknowledgments
The writers wishes to thank James Johnson at Texas DOT and Pamela Adams at Texas Department of State Health Services, for providing road closures report and hospital information and situation used in the research reported in this paper. This paper is based upon work in part supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Nos. CMMI 1131392 and 1000251. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this paper are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
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Information & Authors
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Published In
Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities
Volume 30 • Issue 1 • February 2016
Copyright
© 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jan 24, 2014
Accepted: Jul 15, 2014
Published online: Oct 14, 2014
Discussion open until: Mar 14, 2015
Published in print: Feb 1, 2016
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