Association between location of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, on-scene socioeconomic status, and accessibility to public automated defibrillators in two large metropolitan areas in Canada and France

To compare walking access times to automated external defibrillators (AEDs) between area-level quintiles of socioeconomic status (SES) in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) cases occurring in 2 major urban regions of Canada and France. This was an international, multicenter, retrospective cohort study of adult, non-traumatic OHCA cases in the metropolitan Vancouver (Canada) and Rhône County (France) regions that occurred between 2014 and 2018. We calculated area-level SES for each case, using quintiles of country-specific scores (Q5 = most deprived). We identified AED locations from local registries. The primary outcome was the simulated walking time from the OHCA location to the closest AED (continuous and dichotomized by a 3-minute 1-way threshold). We fit multivariate models to analyze the association between OHCA-to-AED walking time and outcomes (Q5 vs others). A total of 6,187 and 3,239 cases were included from the Metro Vancouver and Rhône County areas, respectively. In Metro Vancouver Q5 areas (vs Q1-Q4), areas, AEDs were farther from (79 % over 400 m from case vs 67 %, p