Reproduction of Kang (2020)
Building on the first reproduction of Kang (2020)’s study measuring the spatial distribution of healthcare resources during the Covid-19 pandemic, Alana and I modified the speed limit data set to improve the accuracy of the network analysis. We employed the osmnx.speed package to fill missing speed limit data based on road type instead of using one catch-all default speed limit. We found that this made a greater change in the results for spatial accessibility for the at-risk population (population over 50 years of age) than for the population with Covid-19. Looking at the Kang 2020 study through the lens of geographic threats to validity as written by Schmitt (1978), we identified areas of potential inaccuracies in the study and were able to target our modifications to improve the original study.
The Kang (2020) Reproduction report
Related Sources
Kang’s original study:
Kang, J. Y., A. Michels, F. Lyu, Shaohua Wang, N. Agbodo, V. L. Freeman, and Shaowen Wang. 2020. Rapidly measuring spatial accessibility of COVID-19 healthcare resources: a case study of Illinois, USA. International Journal of Health Geographics 19 (1):1–17. DOI:10.1186/s12942-020-00229-x.
Schmitts’s Geographic Threats to Validity paper:
Schmitt, R. R. (1978). Threats to validity involving geographic space. Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, 12(4), 191–195. https://doi.org/10.1016/0038-0121(78)90044-7