A geospatial approach for assessing and modeling spatial accessibility of the primary health centers in the tribal talukas of the Vadodara district

Good health is a prerequisite for global livability of man, and it is a critical component of universal needs, hence a need for equitable distribution of health facilities is a factor for sustaining the population. Essentially, the challenge in many countries is to reach the whole population with adequate health care services and to ensure their utilization. Many peripheral Primary Health Care (PHC) facilities are under used, because of the poor services they provide, lack of access, and willingness. The present study emphasizes on the role of geospatial technique for assessing the spatial pattern of primary health care facilities as well as provides frame work for planning sustainable health care facilities in tribal Talukas of Vadodara district. The objectives are fulfilled by application of GIS and related spatial analytic techniques for describing and understanding the spatial organization of health care, examining its relationship to health care service and access, and exploring how health care delivery can be improved. Nearest Neighborhood Analysis, Network Analysis and Weighted Sum Analysis have been employed for assessing and modeling spatial accessibility of PHC locations. The travelling time and travelling distances bands are obtained from the service area analysis with impedance calculated for the travelling time and travelling distance.The distributional pattern and the connectivity network influence the service in question, largely due to sparse distribution of tribal population occupying forest area. The analysis suggest that the population of the study area can optimally be accommodated by allocating only a few new facility but emphasis has to be given to improving the connectivity especially in the inaccessible area which are rendered as dark zone on the basis of poor road connectivity. There is the scope of reshuffling and allocating new PHCs.