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Assessing the disparity in spatial access to hospital care in ethnic minority region in Sichuan Province, China

BACKGROUND: There is a great disparity in spatial accessibility to hospital care between ethnic minority and non-minority regions in China. Being one of the basic social demands, spatial access to hospital care in minority regions draws increasing attention in China in recent years. We performed thi...

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Autores principales: Wang, Xiuli, Pan, Jay
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4989300/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27535827
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-016-1643-8
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author Wang, Xiuli
Pan, Jay
author_facet Wang, Xiuli
Pan, Jay
author_sort Wang, Xiuli
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: There is a great disparity in spatial accessibility to hospital care between ethnic minority and non-minority regions in China. Being one of the basic social demands, spatial access to hospital care in minority regions draws increasing attention in China in recent years. We performed this study to have a better understanding of spatial access to hospital care in ethnic minority region in China, and to guide the allocation of government investment in the future. METHODS: Sichuan Province, southwest of China was selected as a sample to examine the difference in hospital access between ethnic minority and non-minority region in China. We applied the shortest path analysis and the enhanced two-step floating catchment area (E2SFCA) method under ArcGIS 9.3 environment. RESULTS: In Sichuan, healthcare access in ethnic minority region is worse than in non-minority region in terms of time to hospital and the value of spatial accessibility. There is relatively greater inequality in access to doctors and health professionals than in access to hospital beds. In ethnic minority region, the balance between primary, secondary, and tertiary hospitals, as well as between public and private hospitals, is less even, compared with the non-minority region. The disparity within ethnic minority region is larger than in non-minority region. CONCLUSIONS: The combination of shortest path analysis and E2SFCA method is superior to the traditional county ratio method in assessing spatial access to healthcare. Compared to the non-minority region, ethnic minority region rely more heavily on government investment to provide healthcare. In ethnic minority region, the current distribution of primary, secondary and tertiary hospitals is inappropriate, and there is an urgent shortage of healthcare personnel. We therefore recommend that the government use preferential policies to encourage more social capital investment in ethnic minority region, use government investment as a supplement to build a more equitable healthcare market, encourage doctors to work in such regions, and push forward road construction in rural area.
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spelling pubmed-49893002016-08-19 Assessing the disparity in spatial access to hospital care in ethnic minority region in Sichuan Province, China Wang, Xiuli Pan, Jay BMC Health Serv Res Research Article BACKGROUND: There is a great disparity in spatial accessibility to hospital care between ethnic minority and non-minority regions in China. Being one of the basic social demands, spatial access to hospital care in minority regions draws increasing attention in China in recent years. We performed this study to have a better understanding of spatial access to hospital care in ethnic minority region in China, and to guide the allocation of government investment in the future. METHODS: Sichuan Province, southwest of China was selected as a sample to examine the difference in hospital access between ethnic minority and non-minority region in China. We applied the shortest path analysis and the enhanced two-step floating catchment area (E2SFCA) method under ArcGIS 9.3 environment. RESULTS: In Sichuan, healthcare access in ethnic minority region is worse than in non-minority region in terms of time to hospital and the value of spatial accessibility. There is relatively greater inequality in access to doctors and health professionals than in access to hospital beds. In ethnic minority region, the balance between primary, secondary, and tertiary hospitals, as well as between public and private hospitals, is less even, compared with the non-minority region. The disparity within ethnic minority region is larger than in non-minority region. CONCLUSIONS: The combination of shortest path analysis and E2SFCA method is superior to the traditional county ratio method in assessing spatial access to healthcare. Compared to the non-minority region, ethnic minority region rely more heavily on government investment to provide healthcare. In ethnic minority region, the current distribution of primary, secondary and tertiary hospitals is inappropriate, and there is an urgent shortage of healthcare personnel. We therefore recommend that the government use preferential policies to encourage more social capital investment in ethnic minority region, use government investment as a supplement to build a more equitable healthcare market, encourage doctors to work in such regions, and push forward road construction in rural area. BioMed Central 2016-08-17 /pmc/articles/PMC4989300/ /pubmed/27535827 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-016-1643-8 Text en © The Author(s). 2016 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Wang, Xiuli
Pan, Jay
Assessing the disparity in spatial access to hospital care in ethnic minority region in Sichuan Province, China
title Assessing the disparity in spatial access to hospital care in ethnic minority region in Sichuan Province, China
title_full Assessing the disparity in spatial access to hospital care in ethnic minority region in Sichuan Province, China
title_fullStr Assessing the disparity in spatial access to hospital care in ethnic minority region in Sichuan Province, China
title_full_unstemmed Assessing the disparity in spatial access to hospital care in ethnic minority region in Sichuan Province, China
title_short Assessing the disparity in spatial access to hospital care in ethnic minority region in Sichuan Province, China
title_sort assessing the disparity in spatial access to hospital care in ethnic minority region in sichuan province, china
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4989300/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27535827
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-016-1643-8
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