Accessibility to Primary Health Centre in a Tribal District of Gujarat, India: application of two step floating catchment area model

Abstract

Accessibility to the health centre is poorly understood in most of the developing countries. Regardless of development, it is a challenge to provide healthcare services to the entire population. To measure the accessibility of Primary Health Centre (PHC), a two-step floating catchment area model has been used in a tribal district (Dahod) of Gujarat, India. This model catches service area twice. In the first step, it considers the healthcare facility demand for the population to population ratio and in the second step measures the accessibility by summing up the all the values of those service areas within the threshold. It has been observed that there is an apparent disparity in the accessibility of healthcare services. In few pockets of the district, the accessibility is less due to a shortfall of 24 against 66 PHCs or insufficient road network. In other words, the villagers had to travel a long distance for seeking healthcare facility. The study identifies the rendered dark zones of the district and helps the researchers and policymakers to develop infrastructure in terms of improving road network or identify the optimal location for more PHCs.