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.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bagheri, N., Benwell, G., & Holt, A. Measuring spatial accessibility to primary health care. Resource Document. SIRC 2005—17th Annual Colloquium Spatial Information Research Center. https://ourarchive.otago.ac.nz/handle/10523/756.
Balarajan, Y., Selvaraj, S., & Subramanian, S. V. (2011). Health care and equity in India. Lancet,377(9764), 505–515. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(10)61894-6.
Bindu, B., & Joshi, J. P. (2013). A geospatial approach for assessing and modeling spatial accessibility of the primary health centers in the tribal Talukas of the Vadodara district. International Journal Geomatics Geoscience,3(3), 582–591.
Directorate General of Health Services. (2011). Indian Public Health Standards (IPHS) for Primary Health Centres—Guidelines. New Delhi: Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India.
Guagliardo, M. F., Ronzio, C. R., Cheung, I., Chacko, E., & Joseph, J. G. (2004). Physician accessibility: An urban case study of pediatric providers. Health & Place,10(3), 273–283.
Horton, R., & Das, P. (2011). Indian health: The path from crisis to progress. Lancet,377(9761), 181–183. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(10)62179-4.
Joseph, A. E., & Phillips, D. R. (1984). Accessibility and utilization: Geographical perspectives on health care delivery. London: Harper & Row Publishers.
Kanuganti, S., Sarkar, A. K., & Singh, A. P. (2016). Evaluation of access to health care in rural areas using enhanced two-step floating catchment area (E2SFCA) method. Journal of Transport Geography,56, 45–52. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2016.08.011.
Luo, W., & Qi, Y. (2009). An enhanced two-step floating catchment area (E2SFCA) method for measuring spatial accessibility to primary care physicians. Health & Place,15(4), 1100–1107. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthplace.2009.06.002.
Luo, W., & Wang, F. (2003). Measures of spatial accessibility to health care in a GIS environment: Synthesis and a case study in the Chicago region. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design,30(6), 865–884. https://doi.org/10.1068/b29120.
Mallick, R. K., & Routray, J. K. (2001). Identification and accessibility analysis of rural service centers in Kendrapara District, Orissa, India: A GIS-based application. International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation,3(1), 99–105. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0303-2434(01)85027-3.
Mao, L., & Nekorchuk, D. (2013). Measuring spatial accessibility to healthcare for populations with multiple transportation modes. Health & Place,24, 115–122. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthplace.2013.08.008.
McGrail, M. R., & Humphreys, J. S. (2014). Measuring spatial accessibility to primary health care services: Utilising dynamic catchment sizes. Applied Geography,54, 182–188. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2014.08.005.
Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. (2015). Rural health statistics. New Delhi: Government of India.
Ni, J., Wang, J., Rui, Y., Qian, T., & Wang, J. (2015). An enhanced variable two-step floating catchment area method for measuring spatial accessibility to residential care facilities in Nanjing. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health,12(11), 14490–14504. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph121114490.
Radke, J., & Mu, L. (2000). Spatial decomposition, modeling and mapping service regions to predict access to social programs. Geographic Information Sciences,6(2), 105–112.
Ranga, V., & Panda, P. (2014). Spatial access to in-patient health care in northern rural India. Geospatial Health,8(2), 545–556. https://doi.org/10.4081/gh.2014.44.
Ranga Rao, S. P. (1993). Administration of Primary Health Centres in India. A study from the three southern states. New Delhi: Mittal Publications.
Sherman, J. E., Spencer, J., Preisser, J. S., Gesler, W. M., & Arcury, T. A. (2005). A suite of methods for representing activity space in a healthcare accessibility study. International Journal of Health Geography,4(1), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1186/1476-072X-4-24.
Vadrevu, L., & Kanjilal, B. (2016). Measuring spatial equity and access to maternal health services using enhanced two step floating catchment area method (E2SFCA): A case study of the Indian Sundarbans. International Journal for Equity in Health,15(1), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-016-0376-y.
Vora, K. S., Yasobant, S., Patel, A., Upadhyay, A., & Mavalankar, D. V. (2015). Has Chiranjeevi Yojana changed the geographic availability of free comprehensive emergency obstetric care services in Gujarat, India? Global Health Action,8(1), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.3402/gha.v8.28977.
Yang, D. H., Goerge, R., & Mullner, R. (2006). Comparing GIS-based methods of measuring spatial accessibility to health services. Journal of Medical System,30(1), 23–32. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-006-7400-5.
Yin, C., He, Q., Liu, Y., Chen, W., & Gao, Y. (2018). Inequality of public health and its role in spatial accessibility to medical facilities in China. Applied Geography,92, 50–62. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2018.01.011.
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interests.
Ethical approval
The analysis is based on secondary data available in public domain for research; thus no approval was required from any institutional review board (IRB).
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Shaw, S., Sahoo, H. Accessibility to Primary Health Centre in a Tribal District of Gujarat, India: application of two step floating catchment area model. GeoJournal 85, 505–514 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-019-09977-1
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-019-09977-1