Modeling population access to New Zealand public hospitals

Abstract

This paper demonstrates a method for estimating the geographical accessibility of public hospitals. Cost path analysis was used to determine the minimum travel time and distance to the closest hospital via a road network. This analysis was applied to 38,000 census enumeration district centroids in New Zealand allowing geographical access to be linked to local populations. Average time and distance statistics have been calculated for local populations by modeling the total travel of a population if everybody visited a hospital once. These types of statistics can be generated for different population groups and enable comparisons to be made between regions. This study has shown that the northern and southern parts of New Zealand have high average travel times to hospital services. © 2002 Brabyn and Skelly; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.