The role of GIS for health utilization studies: literature review

Abstract

There have been a plethora of studies investigating access issues in relation to health services but until recently a relative lack of research on geographical factors that may be influencing utilisation patterns. This paper includes a timely review on what is known from existing studies, a description of the main methodological concerns highlighted by such studies and draws on the review to present some ideas for more research in this area. The use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) in investigating the relative importance of geographical factors on utilisation patterns is advocated through a review of published studies and a call made for more research to examine potential relationships with for example health outcomes. Recent advances with regard to the availability of detailed geographically disaggregate data and new location-based techniques such as developments in Global Positioning Systems (GPS) hold out great promise in such regards. Finally the policy relevance of such studies is re-iterated in terms of helping to tackle perceived inequities in the system, addressing health inequalities as well as gauging the effectiveness of current and planned service configurations.

The journey effect: how travel affects the experiences of mental health in-patient service-users and their families

“…The 'distance effect' on use of health services was first documented by Edward Jarvis (1850) who identified a negative correlation between home-hospital distance and admission rates. This effect has been widely documented for a range of services, including mental health (Zulian et al, 2011;Higgs, 2009;Tseng et al, 2008;Allard et al, 2003;Fortney et al, 1999). However, univariate designs confound distance with socio-demographic variables.…”

A review on the potential role and application of GIS in the management of substance abuse

“…In the substance abuse field, network analysis is performed to identify the closest treatment centre and the shortest route. The application of GIS to determine the impact of distance through non spatial data to access the healthcare is rapidly growing (Higgs, 2009). There are certain researches which applied GIS to analyse the distance of the treatment centre.…”

Analyzing Geographical Access to HIV Sentinel Clinics in Relation to Other Health Clinics in Zambia

“…Four categories emerged from GIS use in Nykiforuk and Flaman's (2011) review of issues, strengths, limitations, and future prospects in understanding public health outcomes and shaping decision making that covered 621 studies spanning 1990-2007: disease surveillance, risk analysis, access to health services and planning, and community health (utilization) profiling. The study at hand focuses on access and planning, itself a large area also adequately covered in recent reviews (e.g., Foody 2006;Higgs 2004Higgs , 2009). Selected recent GIS applications have ranged from identifying underserved locations where increased access could benefit a growing Hispanic population in Charlotte, South Carolina, using detailed health service use, socioeconomic and demographic data (Dulin et al 2010) to assess health service utilization, and evidence of policy relevance of GIS findings (Higgs 2009;Nykiforuk and Flaman 2011), through implementing behavioral theoretical models of geographic access to health care (Graves 2009) to more sophisticated mathematical modeling and integration of temporal scale in space-time analysis (Foody 2006;Messina et al 2006;Murray 2010).…”

“…GIS use has limitations-much more pronounced in developing countries-including limited spatial data and quality, need for costly training and infrastructure, and more generic methodological issues including dependency of GIS outcomes on scale of analysis units (the modifiable areal unit problem [MAUP]), simplistic assumption of even distribution of population or measured phenomenon within the units, difficulty in integrating temporal dynamism, and concerns over privacy surrounding map-based results (Foody 2006;Gesler 1984;Higgs 2009;Nykiforuk and Flaman 2011). However, the spatial nature of public-health problems and solutions, some improvements in the availability and quality of some data, declining computer costs, and such advances as coupling GIS and location science and theory with modeling (see Murray 2010 for a comprehensive review) will broaden further the use of GIS in analyzing access-related and general public-health problems.…”