Disparities in exposure and accessibility to health: A Spatial Assessment of Covid 19 Pandemic Situation of South Bengal

Abstract

Inequality and disparities of health is prevalent in a developing nation like India. The emergence of the Novel Corona virus has further aggravated this existing problem. The major issue that has been observed in dealing with the pandemic situation is the lack of facilities for testing and inadequate health infrastructure to support the huge population of this nation. This infrastructural deficiency has evidently become severe as we move away from the city areas. In this study, we have tried to assess this rural-urban disparity of health infrastructure in the settings of the COVID 19 pandemic situation. The study has been conducted to measure rural-urban disparities of eight districts i.e. Howrah, Hooghly, Kolkata, North 24 Parganas and South 24 Parganas concerning risk factors and access to health care infrastructure. To achieve the desired objectives, we have used a multidisciplinary technique incorporating statistical, GIS techniques, composite index with several aspects e.g., geographical coverage and sufficiency of COVID care and testing facilities (CCF, CTF), economic status of people, medical costs, and susceptibility to covid risk factors i.e., number of infected populations, and population density. A significant correlation between access to CCF and CTF and the proportion of urban inhabitants has been found, i.e., urban populations mostly enjoy better access to treatment and testing with dense CTFs and CCFs over space. The density and serviceability of care facilities over rural regions decrease with less urbanized areas. Urban areas are found to be at higher risk in terms of the number of active cases, population density. The study helps us to geo visualize the current COVID scenario of South Bengal in terms of regional disparities. This will help us identify the nearest testing and care facilities to any location within the study area and will be useful in mitigating infrastructural lacuna.