Quantitative Evaluation of Spatial Accessibility of Various Urban Medical Services Based on Big Data of Outpatient Appointments

Jinling Sui, Guoqin Zhang (), Tao Lin, Nicholas A. S. Hamm, Chunlin Li, Xian Wu and Kaiqun Hu
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Jinling Sui: Key Laboratory of Urban Environment and Health, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen 361021, China
Guoqin Zhang: Key Laboratory of Urban Environment and Health, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen 361021, China
Tao Lin: Key Laboratory of Urban Environment and Health, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen 361021, China
Nicholas A. S. Hamm: School of Geographical Sciences, University of Nottingham, Ningbo 315100, China
Chunlin Li: CAS Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Management, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016, China
Xian Wu: Key Laboratory of Urban Environment and Health, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen 361021, China
Kaiqun Hu: Key Laboratory of Urban Environment and Health, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen 361021, China

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 6, 1-18

Abstract: Equity of urban medical services affects human health and well-being in cities and is important in building ‘just’ cities. We carried out a quantitative analysis of the spatial accessibility of medical services considering the diverse demands of people of different ages, using outpatient appointment big data and refining the two-step floating catchment area (2SFCA) method. We used the traditional 2SFCA method to evaluate the overall spatial accessibility of medical services of 504 communities in Xiamen city, considering the total population and the supply of medical resources. Approximately half the communities had good access to medical services. The communities with high accessibility were mainly on Xiamen Island, and those with low accessibility were further from the central city. The refined 2SFCA method showed a more diverse and complex spatial distribution of accessibility to medical services. Overall, 209 communities had high accessibility to internal medicine services, 133 to surgery services, 50 to gynecology and obstetrics services, and 18 to pediatric services. The traditional method may over-evaluate or under-evaluate the accessibility of different types of medical services for most communities compared with the refined evaluation method. Our study can provide more precise information on urban medical service spatial accessibility to support just city development and design.

Keywords: medical service spatial accessibility; 2SFCA; type of medical service; residents in different ages; big data; Xiamen City (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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