Identifying Communities of Concern for Older Adults Using Spatial Analysis: Focusing on Accessibility to Health, Social, and Daily Services

Abstract

Ensuring accessibility to necessary services is critical for older adults. However, there often exist spatial disparities in the levels of accessibility to services. Because the application of Geographic Information System (GIS) has gained attention in the gerontology field, we used spatial analysis to identify communities of concern for older adults from the perspective of accessibility. We defined the communities of concern based on the proportion of older adults and the level of accessibility to health, social, and daily services via two specific modes of transportation—walking and public transit. Our findings show that newly developed communities tend to have less accessibility to necessary services, and aging communities are randomly distributed across the city. Our results call for interdisciplinary collaboration, between urban planning and gerontology professionals, to better understand the spatial pattern of aging communities and its implication for properly addressing the mobility needs of older adults in the communities.

Incorporating Exercise Efficiency to Evaluate the Accessibility and Capacity of Medical Resources in Tibet, China

“…The third category of accessibility related research assesses the role of accessibility in supporting optimal planning, and mapping disparities in access to care (De Pietri et al, 2013;Cheng et al, 2016;Weiss et al, 2018;2020;Falchetta et al, 2020;Choi et al, 2021). Most of the studies apply the method or extended method (the second category) for accessibility evaluation as a whole (Meyer, 2012;Munoz and Källestål, 2012;Chen et al, 2014;Cheng et al, 2016;Murad, 2018).…”

“…Effectively characterizing travel time can assist in identifying regions that are beyond the catchment of medical resources (within certain time) and provide guidelines for medical resource optimization. Large amount of related research has been conducted for medical care accessibility evaluation (Murad, 2014;Cheng et al, 2016;Stessens et al, 2017;Choi et al, 2021). Others included elevation as adjustment factor during the accessibility evaluation (Weiss et al, 2018;2020;Falchetta et al, 2020).…”

Navigating Aged Care Services with GIS: Trends, Developments, and Future Directions

“… The rational configuration of RCFs helps to improve the ability of urban old-age service. Kwangyul Choi 2021 [ 62 ] Canada Ageing population in Calgary Quantitative: data Spatial Analysis Using spatial analysis to identify communities of concern for older adults from the perspective of accessibility. The application of GIS to perform spatial analyses can be adopted to other areas or regions not only to gain better understanding of the spatial patterns of necessary resources for older adults but also to identify communities of concerns for them.…”

“…Among the 61 articles reviewed, the needs of older adults were categorized into medical care, basic living, transportation, and spiritual needs. A total of 37 articles focused on medical care [ 3 , 15 , 16 , 20 , 21 , 23 , 24 , 28 , 29 , 31 , 32 , 36 , 37 , 39 – 41 , 43 , 45 – 50 , 50 , 51 , 53 , 54 , 56 , 57 , 60 , 63 – 68 , 72 ], 14 articles addressed basic living needs [ 14 , 18 , 26 , 27 , 30 , 35 , 38 , 44 , 52 , 55 , 58 , 61 , 62 , 69 ], 8 articles discussed transportation needs [ 19 , 22 , 25 , 34 , 42 , 70 , 71 , 73 ], and 2 articles explored spiritual needs [ 17 , 33 ].…”

“…Among the 61 articles, the 2SFCA (two-step floating catchment area) method was employed in 11 articles [ 30 , 37 , 44 , 50 – 52 , 63 , 64 , 66 – 68 ]. Ten articles utilized ArcGIS software [ 29 , 36 , 39 , 40 , 43 , 44 , 61 , 62 , 65 , 68 ], and another ten articles applied the database functions of GIS [ 3 , 17 , 38 , 48 , 51 , 53 , 55 , 58 , 63 , 67 ]. Six articles combined GIS with case study approaches [ 15 , 50 , 51 , 54 , 63 , 64 ], while another six focused on spatial analysis [ 28 , 43 , 53 , 55 , 56 , 62 ].…”