Population Living in a Pulmonology Desert

This chart depicts the percentage of a county's population living at least an hour driving distance from the closest pulmonologist.

The dataset on healthcare providers is licensed through HealthLink Dimensions. Providers were included if they (1) were a doctor of medicine (MD) or doctor of osteopathic medicine (DO); (2) had either ‘‘pulmonologist,” “pulmonary disease,” “pediatric pulmonology,”or “pediatric pulmonary” in their specialty description; (3) were located in one of the 50 U.S. states or the District of Columbia; and (4) had an accurate location mapped to them. A provider may have more than one speciality and/or more than one active location. One identified address was invalid and dropped from analysis.

Drive time was computed for each census tract as drive time between the tract's center of population (based on the 2020 census) to the nearest pulmonologist. Drive time under average traffic conditions was computed using the Google Distance Matrix API based on 8,398 distinct accurate locations found for 15,158 pulmonology providers. Tracts with 0 population or missing valid closest driving distance to a pulmonologist were excluded from the analysis. The percentage of a county population living in a pulmonology desert was weighted using tract population living at least an hour driving distance away from the nearest pulmonologist.