Socioeconomic factors influencing rural-urban ambulance response time disparities in Connecticut

Across the U.S, it is a documented fact that rural areas have longer ambulance response times and tend to have lower median income. The objective of this study was to test if the rural-urban emergency medical service (EMS) response time disparity was related to wealth disparity in the state of Connecticut. All mean EMS response times were sourced from the 2016 Office of Emergency Medical Services Data Report. Rural definitions were sourced from the Connecticut Office of Rural Health. Median income data was drawn from the Connecticut Office of Policy and Management. A Mann-Whitney U test determined if the average rural EMS response time was greater than the non-rural EMS response time. Pearson coefficients quantified the relationship between median income and EMS response time. A t-test ascertained if the average median income differed between the two datasets. The mean EMS response time was 12.98 min (SD = 3.36) rural and 8.26 min (SD = 2.12) non-rural. Rural mean response time and median income were not significantly correlated (r = -.148, p=.247); non-rural mean response time and median income were also not significantly related. No significant disparity was detected (t=0.478, p=.633) between the mean rural household income ($98,258) and mean non-rural household income ($95,706). Significant disparities in EMS response times can exist between rural and non-rural towns separate from median income trends, as is the case in Connecticut. These findings may have limited generalizability because of Connecticut’s relatively high median income as compared to other states yet may be relevant to states with similar economic metrics.