Equity in Access to Health Care Using Geographic Information System: a Kermanshah Case Study

Background and One of the main factors in establishing health equity is delivering equal spatial access to public medical cares to all members in a society. The aim of this study was to evaluate equity in health by assessing people's access to health care centers using Geographic Information System (GIS) in Kermanshah (west of Iran). In this descriptive-analytical study information about medical and health centers and statistical blocks of Kermanshah in 2011 were collected. Data were analyzed using functional radius of 700 meters for each health care center, block area, number of households, and population with and without access to such centers in Arc/GIS software. Data showed that 63.70% of Kermanshah blocks were not covered by health care centers and 132871 households did not have access to these centers. However, from 109440 households with access, 35009 households had access to 2 or 3 centers. Also, 475128 people did not have access to health care centers. The spatial distribution of health centers in city of Kermanshah shows an imbalanced distribution of health care centers. This study revealed a high concentration of health care services in some parts especially in the central part of the city. Meanwhile, western and south-western areas in Kermanshah were not provided with any health care centers. Therefore, applying efficient methods such as GIS could be of great benefit for efficient planning and dealing with such problems.