Abstract

Relationship between healthcare access and mortality outcomes in India
Track: Health and Human Services
Authors: Samir Gambhir, Marvin Hsiao

We are studying the relationship between mortality and spatial access to healthcare facilities by integrating a nationally representative, georeferenced cause-of-death database with the locations of primary health centres across all of India. To account for limitations in the available spatial data, we use a variety of different spatial accessibility measures (provider-to-population ratio, travel-impedance, gravity model, two-step floating catchment area, and kernel density method) in our analysis and discuss the differences in their results and the epidemiologic implications. Our study provides valuable empirical evidence on the application of these GIS techniques to a large-scale georeferenced epidemiologic database representing 1.2 billion people.