ADDRESSING TRANSPORTATION BARRIERS TO IMPROVE HEALTHCARE ACCESS IN ARIZONA

Abstract

Transportation barriers are major in rural Arizona to adequate healthcare access, affecting very substantial proportions of underserved populations like low SES, historically marginalized, and geographically isolated. This essay explores how transportation and environmental factors relate to healthcare access across the state of Arizona, highlighting rural communities' unique challenges in general and those specifically relating to the Sonoran Desert area. The characteristic topography and harsh conditions of the Sonoran Desert alone foster special problems in terms of the development of transportation facilities, fostering isolated healthcare access. It is proposed in this paper that an amelioration of the harmful effects of these transportation constraints be undertaken by working on the causes and careful investigation of multiple interactions among various factors affecting healthcare access in rural Arizona communities. The paper's discussions focused on differences related to urban-rural disparities in transportation policies and funding, lack of transportation infrastructure, and a digital divide affecting the implementation of telehealth. The successful rural transportation methods offer lessons for conquering these barriers. Expanding internet connectivity, enhancing digital literacy, and shifting deeply held attitudes are important in fully meeting what is a very great potential for telehealth. These are multifaceted solutions through fair healthcare reforms, increasing broadband access, and providing better healthcare for all to improve well-being while enhancing the quality of life for thousands of rural citizens living in the state of Arizona: accessibility of quality healthcare. In Arizona, how transportation, environmental factors, and access to healthcare are interrelated has been an issue of growing concern over the recent past for several segments of society, such as rural communities, generally underserved populations, those with lower SES, and groups with historical marginalization and Native American tribal nations (Arizona Health Improvement Plan, 2021; Arpey et al., 2017). Such communities vary in aspects of geographical isolation, lack of resources, and shortage or reduced access to important services, such as health facilities. Thus, these communities generally have poorer health status compared to their metropolitan counterparts. Unique challenges of the physical terrain and environment, which also include the Sonoran Desert, pose distinct issues for transportation infrastructure that contribute to gaps in access to healthcare (Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, 2019). This paper contends that addressing transportation challenges in the rural parts of Arizona is one way to minimize the extent of their negative environmental impacts on barriers to healthcare access among those most marginally located, who carry the greatest load of these challenges. We will do so by investigating how these different factors interact in complex ways to tease out feasible solutions toward better healthcare access and promoting health outcomes for all communities in Arizona.