Distribution of Facilities and Accessibility to Health Services in Kerman Province in 2013

Equitable distribution of healthcare resources is one of the main factors in improving the community's health level. The aim of this study was to determine the degree of development in the cities of Kerman province with a focus on health indicators.
This was a descriptive cross-sectional study. The study population was all 23 cities of Kerman province in 2013. All indicators of accessibility to health care were obtained from the Statistical Centre of Iran (SCI). Taxonomy techniques were used to determine the degree of development in the cities, Shannon entropy techniques were used to determine the weights of indicators, and TOPSIS techniques were used to rank cities. Data was analysed by EXCEL.
According to taxonomy techniques, based on accessibility to health services among 23 cities, 9 were developed, 7 were semi-developed, and 7 were underdeveloped. According to Shannon entropy, the ratio of the number of pharmacists to the population of cities was the main indicator for determining the weight of development in the cities. According to TOPSIS, Ravar was ranked as the first and Arzoiyeh as the last one in terms of development.
There is inequitable distribution of resources, especially human resources with higher education. This is probabily due to the tendency of highly educated individuals to live in developed cities with high facilities. In addition, due to lack of proper medical facilities in disadvantaged areas, higher educated human resources refuse to live in such areas. Therefore, policy makers should allocate budjet and make political decisions based on development priorities.