Abstract

Determining Accessibility to Healthcare Waste Treatment Equipment in Nigeria
Track: Health and Human Services
Authors: Marc Cunningham

Nearly 10-25% of healthcare waste is regarded as infectious and poses health risks to healthcare staff if not appropriately managed. A growing recognition of the importance of these risks in Nigeria has led to increased focus on providing health facilities with access to effective waste treatment units (WTU) for proper waste treatment and final disposal. Determining how to increase access to WTUs requires an understanding of health facility distribution compared with the location, availability, and capacity of WTUs nation-wide.
Under the PEPFAR funded USAID AIDSTAR-One project, we used the Google road network (2010) and the ArcMap Network Analysis tool to link health facilities with the nearest WMU. The results show that 67% of health facilities are within a 90km range of a WMU and identify gaps in reasonable access to a WTU. This analysis will help the Nigerian government prioritize maintenance of existing WTUs and equitable allocation of new resources.