Department of Geography, National Taiwan University, Taiwan; School of Public Health, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
Fire Department, New Taipei City Government, Taiwan.
J Formos Med Assoc. 2019 Jan;118(1 Pt 2):324-331. doi: 10.1016/j.jfma.2018.05.013. Epub 2018 Jun 13.
This study aims to assess rural-urban differences in the predictors of emergency ambulance service (EAS) demand and misuse in New Taipei City. Identifying the predictors of EAS demand will help the EAS service managing authority in formulating focused policies to maintain service quality.
Over 160,000 electronic EAS usage records were used with a negative binomial regression model to assess rural-urban differences in the predictors of EAS demand and misuse.
The factors of 1) ln-transformed population density, 2) percentage of residents who completed up to junior high school education, 3) accessibility of hospitals without an emergency room, and 4) accessibility of EAS were found to be predictors of EAS demand in rural areas, whereas only the factor of percentage of people aged above 65 was found to predict EAS demand in urban areas. For EAS misuse, only the factor of percentage of low-income households was found to be a predictor in rural areas, whereas no predictor was found in the urban areas.
Results showed that the factors predicting EAS demand and misuse in rural areas were more complicated compared to urban areas and, therefore, formulating EAS policies for rural areas based on the results of urban studies may not be appropriate.
本研究旨在评估新北市城乡间急诊救护车服务（EAS）需求及误用的预测因素。识别 EAS 需求的预测因素将有助于 EAS 服务管理机构制定有针对性的政策，以维持服务质量。
使用超过 16 万份电子 EAS 使用记录，采用负二项回归模型评估城乡间 EAS 需求及误用预测因素的差异。
在农村地区，ln 转化人口密度、完成初中及以下教育的居民比例、无急诊医院可达性和 EAS 可达性等因素被发现是 EAS 需求的预测因素，而在城市地区，只有 65 岁以上人口比例这一因素被发现是 EAS 需求的预测因素。对于 EAS 误用，仅在农村地区发现低收入家庭比例是一个预测因素，而在城市地区则没有发现预测因素。
结果表明，与城市地区相比，农村地区预测 EAS 需求和误用的因素更为复杂，因此，基于城市研究结果为农村地区制定 EAS 政策可能并不合适。
