A Study on the Demand of Latent Physical and Mental Disorders in Taipei City

Abstract

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.