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In this study, we use village-level data to examine the impact of geographic proximity on inequality in higher education. We define higher education oases as the area collectively constructed by all the universities within a 15-km travel distance radius from research-intensive universities. Based on the coarsened exact matching method, we identified villages with comparable socioeconomic statistics that differed only in terms of their proximity to highly concentrated higher education resources, thus mimicking a treatment and a control group. Evidence based on this quasi-experimental design shows that villages located in higher education oases have a significantly higher percentage of residents aged 25–34 who have earned a master’s degree or above compared to those not located in higher education oases. However, there is no significant difference in the percentage of residents aged 20–24 with a bachelor’s degree or above between the two groups of villages. This study sheds light on the impact of the geography of opportunity on inequality in higher education in Taiwan.

What this research may achieve points towards the need to progressively improve the reasonableness in establishing Social Welfare Agencies (SWAs). The service capacity of SWAs is far below the population of the level III extremely disabled. This is a serious problem. This evaluation can assist social welfare and public health departments to determine what locations to approve for establishing SWAs in the short term and plan for new SWAs more precisely, as well as rein in budgetary priorities. As an illustration, in considering the distance between SWAs and the extremely disabled, the service quality of SWAs and fairness in the planning have to be taken into account. Introducing a Service Quantity Needed-Index for SWAs (SNIS) into the current measure of approving and planning new SWAs shall assist the departments in distributing social welfare resources to areas most in need of help. In addition, using the modified data to recalculate SNIS can examine needs regularly. Employing basic statistical areas for short-term applications in Taipei City SWA projects, considering the distance between SWAs and the extremely disabled, the agencies’ service quality and fairness in the planning of SWAs need to receive more attention. Previous research mostly employed straight-line distances rather than road distances. To a certain extent, this overlooked the actual capacity of roads as well as led to some degree of discrepancies in evaluations. This essay focuses on calculating SNIS, mainly towards guiding the establishment of facilities and concretely proposing how to optimize their locations. Future research can add in needs at that time in accordance with current evaluation results to propose plans to optimize the locations, or maybe integrate weights of disability to adjust multiple requirements of SWAs.

According to previous research, the most important factor for patient’s survival is based on the emergency treatment in the ambulance and the effective allocation of emergency resource when emergency patients experience out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) before arriving the hospital. This study intended to combine the regional information of emergency medical resources and the data base of geographic information for ambulance to assess the best method of medical treatment for OHCA patients, such as the closest medical center, the level of first-aid capabilities, the proper medical department, the information for hospital beds and the special need for medical section, so that EMD can make decision based on these suggestions. For providing the strategy of emergency ambulance, this research proposed the impact of the optimized population, the level of regional development, the allocation of emergency medical resource, the best timing of executing the chain of survival and the advanced cardiac life support, on the survival rate of OHCA patients through big data analysis. Or through increasing the spatial allocation and flexibility of EMT-P, it can reflect the importance of spatial factors in the challenge for the allocation of emergency medical resources. The results of this study can provide the recommendations for the policy of medical resource allocation.

Like everyone else, the disabled have the human rights towards independence and autonomy. Owing to various factors, their disabilities lead to their often requiring external assistance for a life of independence and autonomy. Living independently on their own for the disabled has gradually become the systematic goal which society strives for. Under this presupposition, measures and facilities to support autonomous and independent living of the disabled should be the research focus, regarding the design and how they could become social progressive measures for the disabled. Spatial analysis will be introduced to discover zones in urgent needs of insertion of social welfare resources. The research mainly makes use of the 2015 Taipei City Government database of the disabled and statistical information of the Department of Social Welfare, Taipei City Government. Through GIS displays, states of distribution of the disabled and related resources are depicted. By integrating Taipei City road network diagrams and statistical information of the disabled from the Department of Social Welfare, areas of coverage of social welfare agencies (SWAs) supporting the disabled are calculated, as zones which these agencies are capable to serve the disabled. For areas which they cannot serve, improved relaxed variable kernel density estimator is employed to discover the hotspots. Combining the hotspots with the Ministry of the Interior’s basic statistical areas, calculating weighted population center points, and suitable candidate locations for establishing SWAs supporting the disabled are found. Results of our research indicate in highlighted fashions the importance of strengthening social assistance programs within the health provision system as well as the necessity for co-operation between social workers and health workers to improve the accessibility of medical and health service for the disabled. This research focuses on expounding the disabled and SWAs supporting them, and analyzing the degree of match between their needs and welfare resources, so as to review changes to the behaviors of the disabled and their chances of survival from policy execution, and also the necessity of social workers and health workers to work together to improve the disabled obtaining medical and health service.

Physically and mentally disabled citizens are just like the general population who have independent human rights, but outside assistance is frequently needed to achieve independency due to the disabilities. An independent life for people with disabilities has gradually become the goal of social promotion. Under the circumstances, the support strategies and facilities for the independency of physically and mentally disabled citizens should be focusing on the design and the goal of exploring the areas needing resources of social welfare by introducing spatial analysis. According to the demographic analysis on the population sizes of physically and mentally disabled citizens in Taiwan between 2008 and 2015, the highest percentage of pathogenesis in different counties/cities was 71.95% caused by illness (organ defects), and the proportion and average life expectancy of people with disabilities in the individual county/city were significantly correlated. That is, the longer average life expectancy, the higher proportion of physically and mentally disabled citizens. Because the demands on healthcare and service are gradually increasing, the establishment of support measures and facilities has become an important topic at present to achieve of the goal of well life independency. The study used a database of disabled persons published by the Taipei City Government in 2015, which was based on the statistics analyzed by the Department of Social Welfare, Taipei City Government. The description of the distribution of physically and mentally disabled citizens and resources was presented by using geographic informatics, and the coverage areas of supportive institutions were calculated based on the information network of route map combining with the statistics of physically and mentally disabled citizens made by Taipei City Government. Hop spots that cannot be covered were explored by applying the Kriging Method. Furthermore, the adequate candidate locations for setting social welfare institutions to support physically and mentally disabled citizens were calculated based on hot spots, minimal statistical areas as well as weighted population center points. Due to the lack of statistical analysis on physically and mentally disabled citizens, the characteristics of demographics were hard to be clarified. This study emphasized the relationships between physically and mentally disabled citizens and their support institutions as well as the analysis on conformity between demands and the resource of social welfare. The aim was to discuss the impacts of policy implementation on the changes in behavior or survival of physically and mentally disabled citizens.