A Spatial Distribution Equilibrium Evaluation of Health Service Resources at Community Grid Scale in Yichang, China

Abstract

Whether the supplies of health services and related facilities meet the demand is a critical issue when developing healthy cities. The importance of health services and related facilities in public health promotion has been adequately proved. However, since the community population and resource data are usually available at the scale of an administrative region; it is very difficult to perform further fine-scaled spatial distribution equilibrium evaluation studies. Such kinds of activities are highly expected for precise urban planning and management. Yichang is located in Hubei province, the central part of China, along the Yangzi River. It is leading both of China’s smart cities demonstration project and China’s healthy cities pilot project. Yichang has defined 1271 community grids for urban management and service, where each grid consists of 200 households generally with its population distribution data routinely updated. The research set the 15-min walking distances of the residents as impedance factors, and the numbers and the types of health service resources as attractiveness factors for accessibility evaluation. The resource ratio, richness and per capita number of various health service resources that can be reached within 15 min from the community grid building is used as spatial distribution equilibrium evaluation indicators. The entropy weight method is used to assign the indicator weight value. The obtained fine-scale evaluation results were analyzed. In this way, a community grid-scale spatial distribution equilibrium evaluation of health service resources in Yichang was performed. The proposed research could be of value for rapid and precise evaluation of spatial distribution equilibrium evaluation of a variety of healthy city resources, to support healthy city planning and management.