An Assessment of Spatial Accessibility of Inpatient Mental Health Care in Tennessee
Abstract
Mental health care has become a growing concern over the last decade. There have been multiple outpatient mental health interventions that seek to improve access and quality of mental health care within Tennessee. For inpatient mental health care, there is little attention paid to interventions on improving accessibility and quality of this level of care. Inpatient mental health care carries stigma around assessments, treatments, and long-term impacts on an individual’s life. While this level of care can be daunting, it is crucial for individuals in crisis, in life-threatening suicidal situations, and for diagnosing and medication. This high level of need requires immediate, timely access to care for individuals to get the help they need. This project seeks to assess what access to inpatient mental health care looks like across Tennessee. To perform an assessment, all the inpatient mental health facilities in Tennessee will be pulled from the publicly accessible Tennessee Department of Health Joint Annual Reports. These reports contain information about insurance charges, facility locations, management, employment data, number of patient encounters, and other data around facility operations. Using these reports, each facility was mapped across Tennessee in ArcGIS with facility-specific details to access the facility. Then, travel time analyses and mental health-related social determinants of health will be layered onto the map to help create a visual representation of what access to inpatient mental health care looks like in Tennessee. As a result of this research focused on understanding spatial accessibility to inpatient mental health, we see that access to inpatient mental health care is heavily concentrated in urban areas. This highlights major access gaps across Tennessee and brings concern to the mental health field around ensuring that individuals have access to timely care when they are in immediate need.
Start Time
15-4-2026 1:30 PM
End Time
15-4-2026 2:30 PM
Room Number
304
Presentation Type
Oral Presentation
Presentation Subtype
Grad/Comp Orals
Presentation Category
Health
Student Type
Graduate
Faculty Mentor
Kate Beatty
An Assessment of Spatial Accessibility of Inpatient Mental Health Care in Tennessee
304
Mental health care has become a growing concern over the last decade. There have been multiple outpatient mental health interventions that seek to improve access and quality of mental health care within Tennessee. For inpatient mental health care, there is little attention paid to interventions on improving accessibility and quality of this level of care. Inpatient mental health care carries stigma around assessments, treatments, and long-term impacts on an individual’s life. While this level of care can be daunting, it is crucial for individuals in crisis, in life-threatening suicidal situations, and for diagnosing and medication. This high level of need requires immediate, timely access to care for individuals to get the help they need. This project seeks to assess what access to inpatient mental health care looks like across Tennessee. To perform an assessment, all the inpatient mental health facilities in Tennessee will be pulled from the publicly accessible Tennessee Department of Health Joint Annual Reports. These reports contain information about insurance charges, facility locations, management, employment data, number of patient encounters, and other data around facility operations. Using these reports, each facility was mapped across Tennessee in ArcGIS with facility-specific details to access the facility. Then, travel time analyses and mental health-related social determinants of health will be layered onto the map to help create a visual representation of what access to inpatient mental health care looks like in Tennessee. As a result of this research focused on understanding spatial accessibility to inpatient mental health, we see that access to inpatient mental health care is heavily concentrated in urban areas. This highlights major access gaps across Tennessee and brings concern to the mental health field around ensuring that individuals have access to timely care when they are in immediate need.
