Lewis Center student fellow wins national award for research on improving transportation access to health care
by Rachel Kovinsky
Nataly Rios Gutierrez MURP ‘22, was awarded the Neville A. Parker Award for her research examining the relationship between transportation challenges and access to health care.
Each year, the Council of University Transportation Centers gives the Neville A. Parker Award to two recipients behind the best master’s project in either policy and planning, or science and technology. Since 2002, 12 UCLA students have won this award.
“It’s a real honor to receive this award, and I hope that it draws attention to the key role that our transportation system can play in either facilitating or hindering health care access,” Rios Gutierrez said.
Rios Gutierrez’s capstone project explored the transportation challenges faced by patients of the Saban Community Clinic (SCC), a clinic that primarily provides health care to uninsured and underinsured Latino patients across Los Angeles. Her extensive research involved spatial analysis of patient residential locations, patient surveys, and an evaluation of the clinic’s ride-hailing program. The project was supported by the Lewis Center and the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies.
Through her research, Rios Gutierrez found that patients who use public transportation, ride-hail, or are driven by someone else are more likely to experience transportation challenges when trying to access care. While SCC tried to reduce these transportation barriers by offering free Lyft rides to patients, findings reveal that this program became increasingly popular and thus increasingly expensive to fund. For patients, these larger barriers to routine and preventative health care contribute to worsening health outcomes, reduce revenue for community clinics, and result in costly ambulance and emergency department visits.
“Clinics and transit operators both have a responsibility to help patients get to and from their health care appointments reliably and inexpensively. Moving forward, I hope that these providers and agencies can work together to better understand the needs of their low-income patients, advocate for increased funding for transit operations, and create programs to overcome these barriers,” Rios Gutierrez said.
Madeline Brozen, deputy director of the Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies and advisor for this capstone project, said that what distinguishes this work is the depth of data collection and analysis.
“Nataly’s capstone project highlights just how important transportation connections are to people living healthy and quality lives. Her research knits together a remarkable quilt of data to tell a larger story about people’s lives and what can actually be done to improve their well-being,” Brozen said.
Rios Gutierrez formally received the award at a Jan. 7 CUTC ceremony in Washington, D.C.
