Variations and inequities in access to cardiac diagnostic services in Ontario Canada.

Objectives: Echocardiography is an essential diagnostic modality known to have wide regional utilization variations. This study's objectives were to quantify regional variations and to examine the extent to which they are explained by differences in population age, sex, cardiac disease prevalence (CDP), and social determinants of health (SDH) risk.

Methods: This is an observational study of all echocardiography exams performed in Ontario in 2019/20 (n = 695,622).