Spatial Accessibility to Health Care Facilities in Suhum District, Ghana

Joseph R. Oppong, M. John Hodgson
1994 Professional Geographer  
Medical Geography (or Health Geography) is the application of geographical information and methods to the study of disease, ill health or aspects of health care, primarily facility location, accessibility and utilization. With the advance of Geographic Information System (GIS) and Spatial Analysis techniques, geography of health care has become useful in planning and managing health care deliveries. This study focused on geography of health care where network analyst functions of GIS was used
more » ... investigate the accessibility of colorectal cancer patients to health care facilities in Kelantan State, Malaysia. Information was obtained from patients' notes from Universiti Sains Malaysia Hospital and the locations of colorectal cancer patients' homes and health care facilities were mapped using Global Positioning System. Network analysis functions in ArcGIS 10.0 software was utilized to measure geographical accessibility of colorectal cancer patients to hospitals. Accessibility was measured based on 2 km multiple buffer distance from hospitals, service area of the hospitals and origin-destination cost matrix. The findings revealed that some parts of the district had very low accessibility to hospitals. Some colorectal cancer patients have to travel more than 3 hours to reach the cancer treatment and oncology specialist clinics located in the district. The findings could be used for planning better health care deliveries especially in sparsely populated areas.
doi:10.1111/j.0033-0124.1994.00199.x fatcat:p3sokokyovdqza55uj5rf7zim4