Analyzing Spatial Distribution of Pharmacies in District 20th of ‎ Tehran

The aim of this study is to investigate the spatial distribution of pharmacies in district 20th ‎of Tehran municipality. The research method was descriptive-analytic and we use spatial statistics ‎and buffering techniques in GIS. The data used included the location of the ‎pharmacies, the land use information and population blocks . Findings ‎show that in the study area, there is one active pharmacy for every 6030 people, which is around ‎world standards but lower than those defined in Iran. Nearest neighbor analysis conclusions ‎show that the closest neighborhoods ratio was 0.77. Multi-distance cluster analysis shows that ‎observed results curve was higher than the expected results curve. The Z score of the Moran ‎index was nearly 1 (0.99). The oval ‎concentrations of the population and the oval focus of the pharmacies are not overlapped. These ‎all show that the distribution of pharmacies is clustered. If we assumed a service area of 330 ‎meters radius for each pharmacy, it concluded that 51 percent of the region area and 60.7 percent ‎of its residents are under the jurisdiction of at least one pharmacy and the rest are not been ‎covered. Therefore, apart from eliminating deficiencies, planning for the appropriate distribution ‎of health and health centers in the region is also necessary.‎