Towards Health Equality: Optimizing Hierarchical Healthcare Facilities towards Maximal Accessibility Equality in Shenzhen, China

Equal accessibility to healthcare services is essential to the achievement of health equality. Recent studies have made important progresses in leveraging GIS-based location–allocation models to optimize the equality of healthcare accessibility, but have overlooked the hierarchical nature of facilit...

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Autores principales:	Zhuolin Tao, Qi Wang, Wenchao Han
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	MDPI AG 2021
Materias:	health equality spatial optimization hierarchical healthcare facilities maximal accessibility equality 2SFCA Technology T Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General) TA1-2040 Biology (General) QH301-705.5 Physics QC1-999 Chemistry QD1-999
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/ba7924a6fc56481082736f156c37d62c
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:ba7924a6fc56481082736f156c37d62c2021-11-11T15:19:00ZTowards Health Equality: Optimizing Hierarchical Healthcare Facilities towards Maximal Accessibility Equality in Shenzhen, China10.3390/app1121102822076-3417https://doaj.org/article/ba7924a6fc56481082736f156c37d62c2021-11-01T00:00:00Zhttps://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/11/21/10282https://doaj.org/toc/2076-3417Equal accessibility to healthcare services is essential to the achievement of health equality. Recent studies have made important progresses in leveraging GIS-based location–allocation models to optimize the equality of healthcare accessibility, but have overlooked the hierarchical nature of facilities. This study developed a hierarchical maximal accessibility equality model for optimizing hierarchical healthcare facilities. The model aims to maximize the equality of healthcare facilities, which is quantified as the variance of the accessibility to facilities at each level. It also accounts for different catchment area sizes of, and distance friction effects for hierarchical facilities. To make the optimization more realistic, it can also simultaneously consider both existing and new facilities that can be located anywhere. The model was operationalized in a case study of Shenzhen, China. Empirical results indicate that the optimal healthcare facility allocation based on the model provided more equal accessibility than the status quo. Compared to the current distribution, the accessibility equality of tertiary and secondary healthcare facilities in optimal solutions can be improved by 40% and 38%, respectively. Both newly added facilities and adjustments of existing facilities are needed to achieve equal healthcare accessibility. Furthermore, the optimization results are quite different for facilities at different levels, which highlights the feasibility and value of the proposed hierarchical maximal accessibility equality model. This study provides transferable methods for the equality-oriented optimization and planning of hierarchical facilities.Zhuolin TaoQi WangWenchao HanMDPI AGarticlehealth equalityspatial optimizationhierarchical healthcare facilitiesmaximal accessibility equality2SFCATechnologyTEngineering (General). Civil engineering (General)TA1-2040Biology (General)QH301-705.5PhysicsQC1-999ChemistryQD1-999ENApplied Sciences, Vol 11, Iss 10282, p 10282 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	health equality spatial optimization hierarchical healthcare facilities maximal accessibility equality 2SFCA Technology T Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General) TA1-2040 Biology (General) QH301-705.5 Physics QC1-999 Chemistry QD1-999
spellingShingle	health equality spatial optimization hierarchical healthcare facilities maximal accessibility equality 2SFCA Technology T Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General) TA1-2040 Biology (General) QH301-705.5 Physics QC1-999 Chemistry QD1-999 Zhuolin Tao Qi Wang Wenchao Han Towards Health Equality: Optimizing Hierarchical Healthcare Facilities towards Maximal Accessibility Equality in Shenzhen, China
description	Equal accessibility to healthcare services is essential to the achievement of health equality. Recent studies have made important progresses in leveraging GIS-based location–allocation models to optimize the equality of healthcare accessibility, but have overlooked the hierarchical nature of facilities. This study developed a hierarchical maximal accessibility equality model for optimizing hierarchical healthcare facilities. The model aims to maximize the equality of healthcare facilities, which is quantified as the variance of the accessibility to facilities at each level. It also accounts for different catchment area sizes of, and distance friction effects for hierarchical facilities. To make the optimization more realistic, it can also simultaneously consider both existing and new facilities that can be located anywhere. The model was operationalized in a case study of Shenzhen, China. Empirical results indicate that the optimal healthcare facility allocation based on the model provided more equal accessibility than the status quo. Compared to the current distribution, the accessibility equality of tertiary and secondary healthcare facilities in optimal solutions can be improved by 40% and 38%, respectively. Both newly added facilities and adjustments of existing facilities are needed to achieve equal healthcare accessibility. Furthermore, the optimization results are quite different for facilities at different levels, which highlights the feasibility and value of the proposed hierarchical maximal accessibility equality model. This study provides transferable methods for the equality-oriented optimization and planning of hierarchical facilities.
format	article
author	Zhuolin Tao Qi Wang Wenchao Han
author_facet	Zhuolin Tao Qi Wang Wenchao Han
author_sort	Zhuolin Tao
title	Towards Health Equality: Optimizing Hierarchical Healthcare Facilities towards Maximal Accessibility Equality in Shenzhen, China
title_short	Towards Health Equality: Optimizing Hierarchical Healthcare Facilities towards Maximal Accessibility Equality in Shenzhen, China
title_full	Towards Health Equality: Optimizing Hierarchical Healthcare Facilities towards Maximal Accessibility Equality in Shenzhen, China
title_fullStr	Towards Health Equality: Optimizing Hierarchical Healthcare Facilities towards Maximal Accessibility Equality in Shenzhen, China
title_full_unstemmed	Towards Health Equality: Optimizing Hierarchical Healthcare Facilities towards Maximal Accessibility Equality in Shenzhen, China
title_sort	towards health equality: optimizing hierarchical healthcare facilities towards maximal accessibility equality in shenzhen, china
publisher	MDPI AG
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/ba7924a6fc56481082736f156c37d62c
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Towards Health Equality: Optimizing Hierarchical Healthcare Facilities towards Maximal Accessibility Equality in Shenzhen, China

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