Category
Applied
Description
Background: As a local priority in Centra Health’s Community Health Needs Assessment, transportation in Lynchburg revealed limitations disproportionately affecting low-income, uninsured, and low-vehicle-availability households, contributing to widening health disparities. To understand how these vulnerabilities compound spatially, we examined how income, insurance status, and vehicle availability intersect at the census-tract level to identify where transportation-related barriers to healthcare access are most concentrated.
Methods: We measured socioeconomic indicators, health outcomes, and transportation barriers of 23 census tracts in Lynchburg, Virginia, using ACS 2019-2023 (2024) and CDC PLACES 2019-2023 (2025) data. Composite tract-level vulnerability scores were generated using SAS and classified into high, medium, and low vulnerability tiers.
Results: Transportation barriers varied across the 23 tracts to reflect significant geographic inequality. These barriers highly predicted poor health outcomes (r=0.83) and correlated with low income (r=0.75). High-vulnerability tracts had significantly worse poor health outcomes compared to low-vulnerability tracts (F=33.48, p<0.001). Vulnerability scores revealed that high-vulnerability tracts experienced significantly worse health outcomes than low-vulnerability tracts, alongside higher reported rates of transportation barriers within Lynchburg.
Conclusion: While transportation is the 9th priority for the CHNA, this analysis revealed the underestimation of this need by 2-3x in the most vulnerable tracts, emphasizing the disparity and underrepresentation of these tract populations within the assessment. The citywide burden concentrates in Tracts 6,7,11,19, and 4 with spatial precision from all the contributing factors related to transportation barriers. This study provides a replicable framework for communities seeking to identify and map disparities at a granular level. In addition, these findings can complement CHNA findings by incorporating census-based data to improve accurate data collection, planning, and investment for Lynchburg health equity.
Where You Live Determines How You Heal: Transportation Barriers and Healthcare Access Across Lynchburg Census Tracts
Applied
Background: As a local priority in Centra Health’s Community Health Needs Assessment, transportation in Lynchburg revealed limitations disproportionately affecting low-income, uninsured, and low-vehicle-availability households, contributing to widening health disparities. To understand how these vulnerabilities compound spatially, we examined how income, insurance status, and vehicle availability intersect at the census-tract level to identify where transportation-related barriers to healthcare access are most concentrated.
Methods: We measured socioeconomic indicators, health outcomes, and transportation barriers of 23 census tracts in Lynchburg, Virginia, using ACS 2019-2023 (2024) and CDC PLACES 2019-2023 (2025) data. Composite tract-level vulnerability scores were generated using SAS and classified into high, medium, and low vulnerability tiers.
Results: Transportation barriers varied across the 23 tracts to reflect significant geographic inequality. These barriers highly predicted poor health outcomes (r=0.83) and correlated with low income (r=0.75). High-vulnerability tracts had significantly worse poor health outcomes compared to low-vulnerability tracts (F=33.48, p<0.001). Vulnerability scores revealed that high-vulnerability tracts experienced significantly worse health outcomes than low-vulnerability tracts, alongside higher reported rates of transportation barriers within Lynchburg.
Conclusion: While transportation is the 9th priority for the CHNA, this analysis revealed the underestimation of this need by 2-3x in the most vulnerable tracts, emphasizing the disparity and underrepresentation of these tract populations within the assessment. The citywide burden concentrates in Tracts 6,7,11,19, and 4 with spatial precision from all the contributing factors related to transportation barriers. This study provides a replicable framework for communities seeking to identify and map disparities at a granular level. In addition, these findings can complement CHNA findings by incorporating census-based data to improve accurate data collection, planning, and investment for Lynchburg health equity.
