Distance to hospital and utilization of surgical services in Haiti: do children, delivering mothers, and patients with emergent surgical conditions experience greater geographical barriers to surgical care? James M. Friedman 1,2 , Lars Hagander 1,2,3,7 , Christopher D. Hughes 1,2 , Katherine A. Nash 4 , Allison F. Linden 1,2,6 , Jeff Blossom 5 and John G. Meara 1,2 * 1 Program in Global Surgery and Social Change, Harvard Medical School, Boston Massachusetts USA 2 Department of Plastic and Oral Surgery, Children’s Hospital Boston, Boston Massachusetts USA 3 Department of Pediatric Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, Lund University, Lund Sweden 4 Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, Manhattan New York USA 5 Center for Geographic Analysis, Harvard University, Cambridge Massachusetts USA 6 Department of Surgery, Georgetown University Hospital, Washington District of Columbia USA 7 International Pediatrics, Lund University, Sweden SUMMARY Background An inverse relationship between healthcare utilization and distance to care has been previously described. The purpose of this study was to evaluate this effect related to emergency and essential surgical care in central Haiti. Methods We conducted a retrospective review of operative logbooks from the Clinique Bon Sauveur in Cange, Haiti, from 2008 to 2010. We used Geographic Information Systems to map the home locations of all patients. Spearman’s correlation was used to determine the relationship between surgical utilization and distance, and a multivariate linear regression model identified characteristics associated with differences in distances traveled to care. Results The highest annual surgical utilization rate was 184 operations/100 000 inhabitants. We found a significant inverse correlation between surgical utilization rate and distance from residence to hospital (r s = À0.68, p = 0.02). The median distance from residence to hospital was 55.9 km. Pediatric patients lived 10.1% closer to the hospital than adults (p < 0.01), and distance from residence to hospital was not significantly different between men and women (p = 0.25). Patients who received obstetric or gynecologic surgery originated 7.8% closer to the hospital than patients seeking other operations (p < 0.01), and patients who received emergent surgical care originated 24.8% closer to the hospital than patients who received elective surgery (p < 0.01). Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. *Correspondence to: J. G. Meara, Department of Plastic and Oral Surgery, Children’s Hospital Boston, 300 Longwood Avenue, Enders 1, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA. E-mail: john.meara@childrens. harvard.edu Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HEALTH PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT Int J Health Plann Mgmt (2012) Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/hpm.2134