Analysis of Geographical Accessibility to Healthcare Facilities Using Geospatial Techniques: The Case of Peri-urban Dwellers in Mbeya City.

In spite of the tremendous achievements in the quality and quantity of health services attained globally, healthcare provision in developing countries remains a serious problem. Accessibility issues have been noted in peri-urban areas and measures to improve physical access to health services continue. This paper offers a comprehensive and analytical methodology of analysing geographical accessibility of healthcare facilities using geospatial techniques. The study employed ArcGIS Network Analyst to build a road network dataset and measure the shortest network-distance and travel-time to the closest healthcare via road networks. Walking speed was also assigned as 3km/hr throughout the whole network. Public transport speed limits of 30km/hr were assigned based on the roads speed limits of Mbeya City, without considering road condition and topography. A total of 70 healthcare facilities and 95 households' settlement points (incidents) were loaded as input in the ArcGIS analyst tool. The findings show that most health facilities are not easily accessible by walking; and that there is a poor spatial accessibility to health facilities and wellbeing among residents in the peri-urban area. Thus, the local government authority is advised to improve the road infrastructure to enhance accessibility to sparsely distributed healthcare facilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]