Optimizing the two-step floating catchment area method for measuring spatial accessibility to medical clinics in Montreal

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Reducing spatial access disparities to healthcare services is a growing priority for healthcare planners especially among developed countries with aging populations. There is thus a pressing need to determine which populations do not...

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Main Authors: Ngui André (Author), Apparicio Philippe (Author)
Format: Book
Published: BMC, 2011-07-01T00:00:00Z.
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042 |a dc 
100 1 0 |a Ngui André  |e author 
700 1 0 |a Apparicio Philippe  |e author 
245 0 0 |a Optimizing the two-step floating catchment area method for measuring spatial accessibility to medical clinics in Montreal 
260 |b BMC,   |c 2011-07-01T00:00:00Z. 
500 |a 10.1186/1472-6963-11-166 
500 |a 1472-6963 
520 |a <p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Reducing spatial access disparities to healthcare services is a growing priority for healthcare planners especially among developed countries with aging populations. There is thus a pressing need to determine which populations do not enjoy access to healthcare, yet efforts to quantify such disparities in spatial accessibility have been hampered by a lack of satisfactory measurements and methods. This study compares an optimised and the conventional version of the two-step floating catchment area (2SFCA) method to assess spatial accessibility to medical clinics in Montreal.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We first computed catchments around existing medical clinics of Montreal Island based on the shortest network distance. Population nested in dissemination areas were used to determine potential users of a given medical clinic. To optimize the method, medical clinics (supply) were weighted by the number of physicians working in each clinic, while the previous year's medical clinic users were computed by ten years age group was used as weighting coefficient for potential users of each medical clinic (demand).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The spatial accessibility score (SA) increased considerably with the optimisation method. Within a distance of 1 Km, for instance, the maximum clinic accessible for 1,000 persons is 2.4 when the conventional method is used, compared with 27.7 for the optimized method. The t-test indicates a significant difference between the conventional and the optimized 2SFCA methods. Also, results of the differences between the two methods reveal a clustering of residuals when distance increases. In other words, a low threshold would be associated with a lack of precision.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Results of this study suggest that a greater effort must be made ameliorate spatial accessibility to medical clinics in Montreal. To ensure that health resources are allocated in the interest of the population, health planners and the government should consider a strategy in the sitting of future clinics which would provide spatial access to the greatest number of people.</p> 
546 |a EN 
690 |a Spatial accessibility 
690 |a medical clinics 
690 |a health services 
690 |a optimized two step-floating catchment area 
690 |a Montreal 
690 |a Public aspects of medicine 
690 |a RA1-1270 
655 7 |a article  |2 local 
786 0 |n BMC Health Services Research, Vol 11, Iss 1, p 166 (2011) 
787 0 |n http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/11/166 
787 0 |n https://doaj.org/toc/1472-6963 
856 4 1 |u https://doaj.org/article/b4f991f9d3fb40f1a21f6d1de3fd21c1  |z Connect to this object online.