Donald E. Pathman, MD, MPH

North Carolina Rural Health Research and Policy Analysis Center

Phone: 919.966.4270
Fax: 919.966.5764
E-mail: don_pathman@unc.edu

Rural Health Research and Policy Analysis Center
University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill
Family Medicine
Box 2688
910 Raleigh Road
Chapel Hill, NC 27515

Completed Projects

Evaluation of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Southern Rural Access Program, Lead researcher
Research center: North Carolina Rural Health Research and Policy Analysis Center
Funder: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF)
Topic: Networking and collaboration

Publications

• How Adults' Access to Outpatient Physician Services Relates to the Local Supply of Primary Care Physicians in the Rural Southeast
  Author(s): Donald E. Pathman, Thomas C. Ricketts, Thomas R. Konrad
  Research center: North Carolina Rural Health Research and Policy Analysis Center
  Topics: Health services, Physicians
  Citation: Health Services Research, 41(1), 79-102
  Date: 2006
  For adults as a whole in the rural South and for the elderly there, low local primary care physician densities are associated with travel inconvenience but not convincingly with other aspects of access to outpatient care. Access for those insured under Medicaid and the uninsured, however, is in more ways sensitive to local physician densities.
• Proximity of Rural African American and Hispanic/Latino Communities to Physicians and Hospital Services
  Author(s): Donald E. Pathman, Thomas R. Konrad, Robert Schwartz
  Research center: North Carolina Rural Health Research and Policy Analysis Center
  Topics: African Americans, Health services, Hispanics, Minority health, Physicians
  Report Number: Working Paper No. 72
  Date: 06 / 2001
  Assesses how local physician concentrations and distances to hospitals differ for rural communities of varying African American and Hispanic/Latino compositions. Uses data at the town-area level for nine southern and six western states to compare town-areas with low, medium, and high proportions of African Americans and Hispanics on their local physician-to-population ratios and distances to nearest hospital offering each of four levels of services. Among the findings are that rural Hispanics, but not African Americans, face longer travel distances to physicians, and both groups face longer distances to some types of hospital services than do non-minority rural individuals.
• Proximity of Rural Black and Hispanic/Latino Communities to Physicians and Hospital Services
  Author(s): Donald E. Pathman, Thomas R. Konrad, Robert Schwartz
  Research center: North Carolina Rural Health Research and Policy Analysis Center
  Topics: African Americans, Health services, Hispanics, Hospitals and clinics, Minority health, Physicians
  Date: 05 / 2001
  This brief reports the findings of a study of how the African American and Hispanic/ Latino composition of rural communities relates to local physician concentrations, and relates to distances to hospitals offering various levels of services.