The Optimal Site Selection for Distribution of Rural Health Houses in Khuzestan Province by Using Analytical Hierarchy Process in Geographic Information System Software

In some rural areas of Iran three decades passes the establishment of rural health houses, and during these years, demographic, economic and social patterns in many rural areas have changed. One of the challenges in the health sector is the allocation of health houses due to the changes in rural areas. The aim of this study was to investigate the distribution of rural health houses based on GIS and determination of its optimal model in Khuzestan province. This study was an applied and descriptive - analytical research. The population of study consisted of all villages and rural health houses in Khuzestan province in 2012.First, Spatial and descriptive required data were collected and corrected. Next, important criteria and sub criteria for optimal site selection for rural health houses were determined from the viewpoint of experts. Then, relative weight of criteria and sub criteria were determine by using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). Finally, by overlapping weighted layers in ArcGIS software a model was presented for locating rural health houses in Khuzestan province. Total of 886 rural health houses in Khuzestan province, 128 rural health houses (14.4%) did not meet the criteria for health network expansion plan. The 358 with residents’ villages has lack proper access to rural health houses. Of experts’ opinion, the main criterion for locating the optimum distribution of rural health houses, the most important criteria was of the rural original population relative weight 0.506. The result showed that using GIS can help to experts of network development plan to manage and distribute the rural health houses. It is recommended that GIS utilized in order to improve the efficiency of healthcare network development plan.