Access to care following injury in Northern Malawi, a comparison of travel time estimates between Geographic Information System and community household reports

•Since the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery, analysis of population access to urgent surgical care, particularly using GIS, has expanded.•Using GIS methodology in Northern Malawi, most of the studied population could not travel to a government secondary facility within two hours.•Compared to community household-reports, GIS underestimated travel time, and correlated poorly with patient-reported travel time.•This study is the first to validate GIS-estimated with community household-reported travel time, for injury care in any low-income country.•GIS methods must be used with caution, accounting for potential error, when planning health system strengthening to improve injury care access.