Accessibility of Opioid Treatment Programs Based on Conventional vs Perceived Travel Time Measures
Authors: Junghwan Kim, Jinhyung Lee, Thomas A. Thornhill, Julia Dennett, Haidong Lu, Benjamin Howell, Lauretta E. Grau, David A. Fiellin, Robert Heimer, Gregg Gonsalves
Journal: JAMA Network Open (2024)

Importance Transportation barriers have long been associated with poorer health outcomes; this burden is especially acute for individuals with opioid use disorder (OUD), a chronic disease often associated with low socioeconomic status. Conventional travel time analyses may not fully account for experiential components of travel, thereby understating the true travel burden and overstating treatment accessibility to opioid treatment programs (OTPs). Objective To develop a metric of feels-like accessibility for those using public transit to access OTPs that accounts for the realistic travel burden on individuals with OUD. Design, Setting, and Participants This cross-sectional study integrated high-resolution transit schedules and operating hours of OTPs to measure feels-like accessibility. Feels-like accessibility considers the differential outcomes of out-of-vehicle travel components and more realistically reflects individuals’ transportation burden than conventional accessibility measures. Gini indices and spatial regression models were used to investigate inequities in accessibility. Geocoded data for residential addresses of 1018 overdose fatalities in Connecticut in 2019 were used as a proxy for the treatment needs of individuals with OUD. Data were analyzed between May and August 2023. Main Outcomes and Measures Conventional and feels-like accessibility scores. Exposures Fluctuations in public transit frequencies over the course of the day and the limited operating hours of the OTPs. Results Of the 1018 individuals in the study, the mean (SD) age at death was 43.7 (12.6) years, 784 individuals (77%) were men, 111 (11%) were African American, and 889 (87%) were White, with other racial and ethnic categories including 18 individuals (2%). A total of 264 individuals in the sample (26%) could not access an OTP within 180 minutes. For those who could access these facilities, the average 1-way travel time was 45.6 minutes, with individuals spending approximately 70% of their trip duration on out-of-vehicle travel components. The conventional accessibility metric underestimates individuals’ travel burden to OTPs as well as the inequity in accessibility compared with the feels-like accessibility metric. For example, the median (range) conventional accessibility score, defined as the number of OTPs within 120 minutes of transit travel time, was 5.0 (0.0-17.0); the median (range) feels-like accessibility score, defined as the number of OTPs within 120 minutes of transit travel time weighted to account for in- and out-of-vehicle segments, was 1.0 (0.0-10.0). There is a considerable temporal variation in travel time and accessibility depending on the departure times. Conclusions and Relevance In this cross-sectional study of travel burdens, the calculated feels-like accessibility scores, which consider the differential outcomes of out-of-vehicle travel components (eg, walking and waiting), could better and more realistically reflect passengers’ transportation burden. Policy recommendations derived from the conventional accessibility metric could be misleading, and decision-makers should use feels-like accessibility metrics that adequately capture individuals’ travel burdens. In the context of access to OTPs, the findings from this study suggest that opening new OTP sites to address gaps in access due to distance to services or extending hours of operation at existing sites may ameliorate the travel burden for individuals.