Nutrition Service Availability: An Interaction Potential Model

Abstract

Availability, defined as a measure of the supply of services relative to the needs in the community, is critical to older people, particularly the socially isolated and frail elderly who are less mobile than most of the population. This research proposes an interaction potential model to examine variation in availability of services by considering the capacity and location of service providers and demand for these services. The model does not constrain older people to meet their demand within their towns' borders. Several measures of availability are calculated for nutrition services in an area agency on aging region of Connecticut, using different beta values to represent varying levels of mobility for the total older population; considerable variation exists, depending on mobility assumptions. Availability measures can be used as independent variables in analyses of variation in actual use of services; a strong correlation exists between use and availability in Connecticut.

Geographic Information Systems in Community-Based Gerontological Research and Practice

“…Isolines showing points of equal distance (or travel cost) from the origin of interest might then be created. Researchers examining the relationship between distance and service availability, who formerly relied on time and travel distance matrices published by various transportation agencies (e.g., Meyer & Cromley, 1991), may find these capabilities especially valuable. GIS network analytical tools also can be used to solve spatial allocation problems.…”