Evaluating the access of slum residents to healthcare centers in Kermanshah Metropolis, Iran (1996–2016): A spatial justice analysis

BACKGROUND: Proper access to health care centres and services is one of the key indicators of health justice, and it is more than ever important in slums. OBJECTIVE: This aim of this research is to evaluate the accessibility of health care centres to slum residents in the Kermanshah metropolis, Iran during the period 1996–2016. METHODS: In this cross-sectional study, data was obtained from the Census of Iran for the periods 1996, 2006 and 2016. Information on the number and location of health care centres was collected from the Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences. Network Analysis modelling method in Arc/GIS10.6 software was used to evaluate the accessibility of people to health centres. RESULTS: The results show that the spatial pattern of health centres in Kermanshah was random during 1996, 2006 and 2016, but the spatial pattern of poverty in the metropolis was clustered. In addition, the distribution of health centres was not consistent with the population densities. However, the overall population with inappropriate access to health centres in the slums of Kermanshah metropolis decreased over the study period (1996–54.02%, 2006–51.09%, and 2016–34.71%). CONCLUSIONS: The findings of the study reveal that access to health care services by the slum population is not consistent with the increase of health care centres. This means that health policymakers were unsuccessful to provide the required health care services for the slums.