Abstract
Research on the spatial access to medical services has become a hot topic in recent years. The representative provincial capital in the underdeveloped region of northwestern China, Lanzhou, was selected for the research area. In this paper, methods such as the two-step floating catchment area and ArcGIS network analysis are used to analyze the geographic spatial accessibility of medical services and differences of spatial access between urban and rural areas in Lanzhou city. The results show that 1. Areas in General and below grade of accessibility account for most of Lanzhou city. Therefore, the spatial accessibility of whole Lanzhou city is comparatively unsatisfactory. It shows a tendency of the north region to be worse than south region, and areas in parts of the main districts, parts of HG, and other tiny minority show Great grade of accessibility, and most of other areas distribute in poorer grade of accessibility, especially the surrounding mountainous region. 2. There are obvious differences in accessibility between urban and rural regions, mainly reflected in that residents and areas are basically districted in the Great and Good grade in the urban region, while almost 75% of the population and 35% of the areas are distributed in the Great and Good grade, and nearly 25% of the residents and 65% of the areas are still in the unsatisfactory accessibility grade in the rural region. According to the results, the researchers put forward corresponding suggestions to improve the current situation, which are roughly as follows: The construction of hospitals and primary health care should be strengthened in the rural region, especially the construction of township health centers and health stations. High-class hospitals are needed in Honggu district, Yongdeng county, Yuzhong county, and Gaolan county, while the medical capacity and facility grade of existing hospitals should be improved to satisfy the demand of local residents. Meanwhile, rural areas should strengthen the construction of road networks.
Highlights
It is one of the main imperatives of health care geography to study the reasonable geographical allocation of health care institutions and facilities, which involves analyzing the spatial allocation and functions of medical service institutions, including geographic locations and spatial distribution of them, and the number of medical staff and beds
Before calculating the spatial accessibility of medical services, the time impedance of the population points to the nearest medical institutions calculated would provide a basis and clarification for the analysis of accessibility differences in space
In a 15 to 30 min timeframe, 26.6% of the region can obtain primary medical services, but only 12.3% of the population is radiated, which shows that this kind of situation mostly occurs in suburbs and rural area with less population
Summary
It is one of the main imperatives of health care geography to study the reasonable geographical allocation of health care institutions and facilities, which involves analyzing the spatial allocation and functions of medical service institutions, including geographic locations and spatial distribution of them, and the number of medical staff and beds. Geography of health care studies the relationship between the spatial distribution of medical services and the demand of an area’s residents, the reasons for destroying the balance and its spatial distribution pattern, and the condition of maintaining the balance. In the study of health care geography, combining the functions of a medical service institution and the concept of accessibility can intuitively analyze the medical service in space, as spatial accessibility is an effective measurement standard for the service capacity of medical service facilities. Access has both spatial and aspatial dimensions [2]. IInn tthhiiss ppaappeerr,, ssppaattiiaall aacccceessss ttoo mmeeddiiccaall sseerrvviicceess iiss aannaallyyzzeedd bbyy 22SSFFCCAA aanndd ootthheerr aapppprrooaacchheess,, wwhhiicchh iiss aaiimmeedd aatt eexxppllaaiinniinngg wwhheetthheerr tthhee ddiissttrriibbuuttiioonn ooff mmeeddiiccaall ffaacciilliittiieess iiss rreeaassoonnaabbllee,, wwhheetthheerr ssuuppppllyy aannddddeemmaannddaarerebablaalnacnecde,dw, whehtehtehretrhtehreeries sispastpiaalticaolmcopmatpibaitliibtyilibteytwbeetewnereensidreesnitdiaelnatiraelasaraenads iannfdraisntfrruacsttururec,taunred, tahneddtehgerdeeegorfeme eodf imcaeldriecsaolurrecseoudriscpeadriistypabreittywbeeentwuerebnanurabnadnraunrdalrruergailornesg. ions
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