TY - JOUR T1 - Timely Access to Essential Surgery, Surgical Workforce, and Surgical Volume: Global Surgery Indicators in Mexico JF - Global Health: Science and Practice JO - GLOB HEALTH SCI PRACT DO - 10.9745/GHSP-D-21-00745 VL - 11 IS - 1 SP - e2100745 AU - Rafael H. Pérez-Soto AU - Alicia Maybi Trolle-Silva AU - Gabriela Alejandra Buerba-Romero Valdés AU - Germán Esteban Sánchez-Morales AU - David Velázquez-Fernández AU - Antonio Ramos-De la Medina AU - Miguel F. Herrera Y1 - 2023/02/28 UR - http://www.ghspjournal.org/content/11/1/e2100745.abstract N2 - Key FindingsIn addition to geographical access to surgical care, other factors, including surgical workforce and surgical volume, affect access to essential surgical services.When considering Mexico’s fragmented public health system, an estimated 81.7% of the population have timely access to surgical care, but municipalities where population access was less than 20% were scattered throughout the country.Surgical workforce increase has been proportional to the Mexican population growth during the last 5 years, indicating no improvement in this area.Key ImplicationPolicy changes are necessary to improve equitable and timely access to essential surgery services across the Mexican population.Introduction:The Lancet Commission on Global Surgery seeks to improve surgical care outcomes and equity for the world population through 6 indicators outlined in its 2030 Global Surgery Report. Our study aimed to estimate the percentage of the Mexican population with access to surgical care within the 2-hour distance range (indicator 1), the surgical workforce density (indicator 2), and the number of surgical procedures performed per 100,000 inhabitants (indicator 3) during the year 2020. Knowing these indicators can help to design and implement policies to increase surgical care access coverage and equity in our country.Methods:Data related to population distribution, local referral hospitals, and surgical volume were obtained from the 2020 Mexican National Census. Information relating to hospital characteristics and surgical specialists was collected from the Secretariat of Health’s public records. We calculated travel time between health care facilities and municipalities using the TrueWay Matrix API and R Studio.Results:Taking into consideration the health care system affiliation, the proportion of the Mexican population with timely access to essential surgery was 81.7%, with 29.3 specialists per 100,000 inhabitants and 726.9 annual procedures performed per 100,000 inhabitants. We identified clusters of municipalities where a low proportion of the population has timely access to essential surgery.Conclusion:These findings illustrate that changes in Mexican policy are required to facilitate more equitable and timely access to essential surgical care among the population. ER -