Unequal Underestimation of Emergency Medical Service Accessibility under Urban Flood Impacts

Disruption or delay of emergency medical services (EMS) is one of the most serious cascading hazards caused by urban flooding. Many studies have examined whether socially vulnerable populations are at higher risk of EMS disruption. However, given concerns about potential biases in urban analytical methods, examining the relationship between risk estimation errors and social vulnerability is necessary. Greater underestimation of vulnerable populations’ risks may make efforts to mitigate these risks less effective. We used one of the state-of-the-art quickest-routing-based EMS disruption risk estimation methods and a real-world EMS dataset and found that lower-income populations are subject to greater ambulance travel time underestimation. These results are expected to promote reflections on the current methods for EMS disruption risk assessment, resource deployment optimization, and the development of better practices and analytical tools.