Disparities in Healthcare Services and Spatial Assessments of Mobile Health Clinics in the Border Regions of Thailand

Hiranya Sritart, Kuson Tuntiwong, Hiroyuki Miyazaki and Somchat Taertulakarn
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Hiranya Sritart: Faculty of Allied Health Sciences, Thammasat University, Pathumthani 12120, Thailand
Kuson Tuntiwong: School of Dentistry, King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang, Bangkok 10520, Thailand
Hiroyuki Miyazaki: Center for Spatial Information Science, Tokyo University, Chiba 277-8568, Japan
Somchat Taertulakarn: Faculty of Allied Health Sciences, Thammasat University, Pathumthani 12120, Thailand

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 20, 1-24

Abstract: Reducing the disparities in healthcare access is one of the important goals in healthcare services and is significant for national health. However, measuring the complexity of access in truly underserved areas is the critical step in designing and implementing healthcare policy to improve those services and to provide additional support. Even though there are methods and tools for modeling healthcare accessibility, the context of data is challenging to interpret at the local level for targeted program implementation due to its complexity. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to develop a concise and context-specific methodology for assessing disparities for a remote province in Thailand to assist in the development and expansion of the efficient use of additional mobile health clinics. We applied the geographic information system (GIS) methodology with the travel time-based approach to visualize and analyze the concealed information of spatial data in the finer analysis resolution of the study area, which was located in the border region of the country, Ubon Ratchathani, to identify the regional differences in healthcare allocation. Our results highlight the significantly inadequate level of accessibility to healthcare services in the regions. We found that over 253,000 of the population lived more than half an hour away from a hospital. Moreover, the relationships of the vulnerable residents and underserved regions across the province are underlined in the study and substantially discussed in terms of expansion of mobile health delivery to embrace the barrier of travel duration to reach healthcare facilities. Accordingly, this research study addresses regional disparities and provides valuable references for governmental authorities and health planners in healthcare strategy design and intervention to minimize the inequalities in healthcare services.

Keywords: spatial accessibility; geographic information system; spatial distribution; healthcare disparity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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