Methodology for building a geographical accessibility health index throughout metropolitan France.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Launay L
PROVIDER: S-EPMC6705764 | biostudies-literature | 2019
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Methodology for building a geographical accessibility health index throughout metropolitan France.
Launay Ludivine L Guillot Fabien F Gaillard David D Medjkane Mohand M Saint-Gérand Thierry T Launoy Guy G Dejardin Olivier O
PloS one 20190822 8
Spatial accessibility to health services is a key factor in terms of public health. Even though some tools are available, establishing accessibility criteria applicable from one geographic scale to another remains difficult. Therefore, we propose a method for creating a health accessibility index applicable on a large geographic scale, based on a methodology that overcomes the limitations of political-administrative divisions and which allows a multi-scalar approach to be implemented. The index ...[more]
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Project description:To better estimate the travel time to the most proximate health care facility (HCF) and determine differences across heterogeneous land coverage types, this study explored the use of a novel cloud-based geospatial modeling approach. Geospatial data of 145,134 cities and villages and 8,067 HCF were gathered with land coverage types, roads and river networks, and digital elevation data to produce high-resolution (30 m) estimates of travel time to HCFs across Peru. This study estimated important variations in travel time to HCFs between urban and rural settings and major land coverage types in Peru. The median travel time to primary, secondary, and tertiary HCFs was 1.9-, 2.3-, and 2.2-fold higher in rural than urban settings, respectively. This study provides a new methodology to estimate the travel time to HCFs as a tool to enhance the understanding and characterization of the profiles of accessibility to HCFs in low- and middle-income countries.
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