May 21, 2026
We're happy to celebrate a published paper in ScienceDirect by SCARP PhD student Amrit Tiwana and several SCARP co-authors, deep-diving the complicated world of equitable access to healthcare services.
This work reflects contributions across the SCARP community, including a PhD student, a faculty member, a postdoc, and an alum.
And now, introducing this SCARP team's published paper:
Spatial and social inequities in access to essential healthcare services:
a case study of a fast-growing, diverse Canadian city
authored by Amrit Tiwana
co-authored by Dr. Martino Tran, Dr. Christina Draeger, and Ben Mumford
This paper looks at inequities in essential healthcare services, both caused by spatial and social factors.
The study examines this in Surrey, BC, using public transit travel times and socio-demographic Census data to understand not just where access gaps exist, but who is most affected by them.
Healthcare access is not evenly distributed across the city, and older adults, visible minority communities, and residents living in lower-density suburban and peripheral areas can be further disadvantaged when essential services and access to them through reliable transit are harder to reach.
As primary author Amrit Tiwana puts it,
Accessibility is not only a transportation issue or a land use issue, but also an equity issue. If cities want to be inclusive and healthy, planning decisions need to account for how infrastructure and services are experienced by different communities in different places.
As primary author Amrit Tiwana comments:
This research shows that inequities in healthcare access are not just about distance or location, but about how social and spatial disadvantage intersect. For planning, that means we need to move beyond one-size-fits-all approaches and design cities and services that better respond to the needs of communities facing multiple forms of inequity.
The methodological framework presented in the study offers policymakers a practical tool for evaluating the impacts of transport and infrastructure planning. The authors placed their findings in context, impressing upon us that "urban policy must identify and address the specific needs of vulnerable populations to meet the United Nations’ Sustainability Goal 11 (The Global Goals, 2024), which aims to improve the inclusivity and sustainability of cities".
About the authors
Amrit Tiwana
Amrit’s research examines the association between social and spatial inequities in healthcare accessibility and the burden of chronic diseases in Metro Vancouver, to develop evidence-based tools to guide equitable infrastructure planning.
Associate Professor Martino Tran
Tran's research investigates the environmental, societal and ethical implications of new data, technology, and infrastructure in cities, applying complexity sciences and computational methods to the interdependencies between people, technology, and the built environment.
Dr. Christina Draeger
Trained as a climate scientist, mathematician, and data scientist, Christina aims to advance sustainable and equitable socio-ecological systems through modern quantitative approaches
Ben Mumford
Mumford graduated from SCARP's MCRP program in 2022. His Studio project, "Shifting Toward Transit in Squamish", studied feasibility and offered policy recommendations.