Integrating Socioeconomic Status and Spatial Factors to Improve the Accessibility of Community Care Resources Using Maximum-Equity Optimization of Supply Capacity Allocation

Abstract

Health promotion empowers people, communities, and societies to take charge of their own health and quality of life. To strengthen community-based support, increase resource accessibility, and achieve the ideal of aging, this study targets the question of maximum equity with minimum values, taking distances and spatial and non-spatial factors into consideration. To compare disparities in the accessibility of community care resources and the optimization of allocation, methods for community care resource capacity were examined. This study also investigates units based on basic statistical area (BSA) to improve the limitation of larger reference locations (administrative districts) that cannot reflect the exact locations of people. The results show the capacity redistribution of each service point within the same total capacity, and the proposed method brings the population distribution of each demand to the best accessibility. Finally, the grading system of assessing accessibility scarcity allows the government to effectively categorize the prior improvement areas to achieve maximum equity under the same amount of care resources. There are 2046 (47.26%) and 396 (9.15%) BSAs that should be improved before and after optimization, respectively. Therefore, integrating socioeconomic status and spatial factors to assess accessibility of community-based care resources could provide comprehensive consideration for equal allocation.