Evaluating Spatial Accessibility to General Hospitals with Navigation and Social Media Location Data: A Case Study in Nanjing

Tianlu Qian, Jie Chen, Ang Li, Jiechen Wang and Dingtao Shen
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Tianlu Qian: Jiangsu Provincial Key Laboratory of Geographic Information Science and Technology, Key Laboratory for Land Satellite Remote Sensing Applications of Ministry of Natural Resources, School of Geography and Ocean Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China
Jie Chen: School of Architecture and Surveying Engineering, Datong University, Datong 037009, China
Ang Li: Jiangsu Provincial Key Laboratory of Geographic Information Science and Technology, Key Laboratory for Land Satellite Remote Sensing Applications of Ministry of Natural Resources, School of Geography and Ocean Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China
Jiechen Wang: Jiangsu Provincial Key Laboratory of Geographic Information Science and Technology, Key Laboratory for Land Satellite Remote Sensing Applications of Ministry of Natural Resources, School of Geography and Ocean Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China
Dingtao Shen: Changjiang River Scientific Research Institute, Changjiang Water Resources Commission, Wuhan 430010, China

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 8, 1-16

Abstract: Spatial accessibility to general hospitals is an important indicator of the convenience and ability of residents to obtain medical services. Therefore, developing a model for measuring accessibility to general hospitals by multiple transportation modes is necessary. In this study, considering that the increase in travel time will reduce the attractiveness of general hospitals, we used the Two-Step Floating Catchment Area with the Gaussian attenuation function, in which the supply was presented by capacity of hospitals (i.e., number of beds), and the demand was presented by population in each grid derived with social media data mapping real-time locations of active users. The Gaussian Two-Step Floating Catchment Area (Ga2SFCA) simulates the attenuation tendency of the general hospital service capabilities over transit time. To obtain a highly precise understanding of accessibility to hospitals, transit time on Baidu Maps’ navigation service was used as the impedance condition, and the study area was divided into 1 square kilometer grids as the basic unit of research. Taking Nanjing city as a case study, it is found that the accessibility distribution shape changes from a multi-centered circular pattern to a multi-peak distribution, as the time threshold increases. By comparing the accessibility among 11 districts varying from main urban area to suburbs, the accessibility to general hospitals in Nanjing is significantly regionally unbalanced in both travel modes. By calculating and mapping the Modal Accessibility Gap (MAG) of the two travel modes, different modes of transportation resulted in different general hospital accessibility distributions. Generally, private car is superior in access to general hospitals to public transit in most areas. In the central area, public traffic may not contribute to the access to medical services as much as we thought, rather it plays a role in areas far from hospitals along metro lines and bus routes.

Keywords: accessibility; general hospitals; equity; gaps between traffic modes; navigation data; population spatialization with social media data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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