Spatiotemporal Mapping of Point-of-Care Diagnostic Accessibility: A Data-Driven Pipeline for Point-of-Care Distribution Analysis in Western Uganda
- 1Karolinska Institutet
Abstract
BackgroundAccurate diagnosis is foundational to effective clinical decision-making and patient outcomes. Availability to essential in vitro diagnostics within the primary health care in Uganda was 10-15% in 2007. Tools to analyse and visualise diagnostic data are essential across clinical, commercial, and policy contexts. Here, we present a novel visualization pipeline using diagnostic availability data from Western Uganda as a case study, alongside a generalizable, data-driven framework for POCT distribution analysis.
MethodAll primary healthcare centers owned by the Ugandan government in the Western Region of Uganda were submitted to a questionnaire concerning current availability of POCT from the Essential diagnostic List 2 part 1a and 1b, and the African laboratory inventory done by African Society of Laboratory Medicine and AfricaCDC. The data from the questionnaire was then linked to open source geodata provided by TomTom, and population data to calculate and visualize the accessibility of captured POCT.
FindingsAvailability of POCT Malaria is almost 100%, HIV 68-90%, and >30% for a majority of the POCT in the EDL-2 panel. 90% of the population in Western Region live within 1 hour by car from most of the essential POCT. Figures in the complementary web-based application visualize the accessibility of POCT for Western Uganda. Diagnostic deserts are visualized.
InterpretationAccess to POCT at primary health care facilities in western Uganda has expanded substantially over the past decades. The geo-mapping tool presented here could inform policy decisions on strengthening diagnostic capacity at the national, regional, and provincial level.
FundingSwedish Research Council and Infravis
All supplementary materials and a preprint of this submission are available on our OSF repository https://osf.io/j7puk/.
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BibTeX
@misc{bergman2026spatiotemporal,
title = {{Spatiotemporal Mapping of Point-of-Care Diagnostic Accessibility: A Data-Driven Pipeline for Point-of-Care Distribution Analysis in Western Uganda}},
author = {D. Bergman and D. Nyehangane and L. Besancon and M. Podkorytova and V. Tsoumari and D. Staikoglou and A. N. Kimuli and M. R. Richard and P. Ogwok and C. Nankoma and T. Alfven and J. Mwanga-Amumpaire and G. Gaudenzi},
howpublished = {medRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = aug,
doi = {10.64898/2026.08.28.26361594},
url = {https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.08.28.26361594v1},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Spatiotemporal Mapping of Point-of-Care Diagnostic Accessibility: A Data-Driven Pipeline for Point-of-Care Distribution Analysis in Western Uganda
AU - D. Bergman
AU - D. Nyehangane
AU - L. Besancon
AU - M. Podkorytova
AU - V. Tsoumari
AU - D. Staikoglou
AU - A. N. Kimuli
AU - M. R. Richard
AU - P. Ogwok
AU - C. Nankoma
AU - T. Alfven
AU - J. Mwanga-Amumpaire
AU - G. Gaudenzi
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/08/28
PB - medRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.08.28.26361594
UR - https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.08.28.26361594v1
AB - BackgroundAccurate diagnosis is foundational to effective clinical decision-making and patient outcomes. Availability to essential in vitro diagnostics within the primary health care in Uganda was 10-15% in 2007. Tools to analyse and visualise diagnostic data are essential across clinical, commercial, and policy contexts. Here, we present a novel visualization pipeline using diagnostic availability data from Western Uganda as a case study, alongside a generalizable, data-driven framework for POCT distribution analysis. MethodAll primary healthcare centers owned by the Ugandan government in the Western Region of Uganda were submitted to a questionnaire concerning current availability of POCT from the Essential diagnostic List 2 part 1a and 1b, and the African laboratory inventory done by African Society of Laboratory Medicine and AfricaCDC. The data from the questionnaire was then linked to open source geodata provided by TomTom, and population data to calculate and visualize the accessibility of captured POCT. FindingsAvailability of POCT Malaria is almost 100%, HIV 68-90%, and >30% for a majority of the POCT in the EDL-2 panel. 90% of the population in Western Region live within 1 hour by car from most of the essential POCT. Figures in the complementary web-based application visualize the accessibility of POCT for Western Uganda. Diagnostic deserts are visualized. InterpretationAccess to POCT at primary health care facilities in western Uganda has expanded substantially over the past decades. The geo-mapping tool presented here could inform policy decisions on strengthening diagnostic capacity at the national, regional, and provincial level. FundingSwedish Research Council and Infravis All supplementary materials and a preprint of this submission are available on our OSF repository https://osf.io/j7puk/.
ER -