Effect of doctor allocation policies on the equitable distribution of doctors in Thailand

BACKGROUND: Equitable geographic distribution of doctors is crucial for the provision of an accessible and efficient health service system. This study aimed to assess the effects of doctor allocation by the Thai Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) in relation to equity distribution. METHODS: This descr...

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Autores principales: Noree, Thinakorn, Pagaiya, Nonglak, Nimnual, Intira
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2023
Materias:
Research
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9838019/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36639659
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12960-022-00782-5
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author Noree, Thinakorn
Pagaiya, Nonglak
Nimnual, Intira
author_facet Noree, Thinakorn
Pagaiya, Nonglak
Nimnual, Intira
author_sort Noree, Thinakorn
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Equitable geographic distribution of doctors is crucial for the provision of an accessible and efficient health service system. This study aimed to assess the effects of doctor allocation by the Thai Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) in relation to equity distribution. METHODS: This descriptive study compared secondary data on the number of doctors, gross provincial products (GPP), and populations of 76 Thai provinces for the years 2017 and 2021. The ratio of doctors to 1000 population was used to measure the spatial distribution of doctors by province. Lorenz curves and the Gini coefficient were used to determine the equity of doctor distribution. RESULTS: The results showed that the Gini coefficient decreased from 0.191 in 2017 to 0.03 in 2021 indicating that the equitable distribution of doctors improved after the MoPH commenced allocating newly graduated doctors according to health utilization in 2017. Compared to 2017, the percentage changes in the number of doctors were higher in provinces with lower doctor densities and in provinces with higher GPPs. CONCLUSION: The equitable distribution of doctors in Thailand was affected by two main causes: the allocation of newly graduated doctors by the MoPH and the turnover rate of existing doctors.
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spelling pubmed-98380192023-01-14 Effect of doctor allocation policies on the equitable distribution of doctors in Thailand Noree, Thinakorn Pagaiya, Nonglak Nimnual, Intira Hum Resour Health Research BACKGROUND: Equitable geographic distribution of doctors is crucial for the provision of an accessible and efficient health service system. This study aimed to assess the effects of doctor allocation by the Thai Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) in relation to equity distribution. METHODS: This descriptive study compared secondary data on the number of doctors, gross provincial products (GPP), and populations of 76 Thai provinces for the years 2017 and 2021. The ratio of doctors to 1000 population was used to measure the spatial distribution of doctors by province. Lorenz curves and the Gini coefficient were used to determine the equity of doctor distribution. RESULTS: The results showed that the Gini coefficient decreased from 0.191 in 2017 to 0.03 in 2021 indicating that the equitable distribution of doctors improved after the MoPH commenced allocating newly graduated doctors according to health utilization in 2017. Compared to 2017, the percentage changes in the number of doctors were higher in provinces with lower doctor densities and in provinces with higher GPPs. CONCLUSION: The equitable distribution of doctors in Thailand was affected by two main causes: the allocation of newly graduated doctors by the MoPH and the turnover rate of existing doctors. BioMed Central 2023-01-13 /pmc/articles/PMC9838019/ /pubmed/36639659 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12960-022-00782-5 Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Noree, Thinakorn
Pagaiya, Nonglak
Nimnual, Intira
Effect of doctor allocation policies on the equitable distribution of doctors in Thailand
title Effect of doctor allocation policies on the equitable distribution of doctors in Thailand
title_full Effect of doctor allocation policies on the equitable distribution of doctors in Thailand
title_fullStr Effect of doctor allocation policies on the equitable distribution of doctors in Thailand
title_full_unstemmed Effect of doctor allocation policies on the equitable distribution of doctors in Thailand
title_short Effect of doctor allocation policies on the equitable distribution of doctors in Thailand
title_sort effect of doctor allocation policies on the equitable distribution of doctors in thailand
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9838019/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36639659
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12960-022-00782-5
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