Regional differences in access to health care in Poland from the perspective of health care resources

Abstract

Objective To examine disparities in access to the public in Poland, in association of the resources of health care, socio-economic development of Provinces and their level of urbanization. Material and Methods The Provinces were divided into four groups, using the quartile method, according to the urbanization and level of socio-economic development. The socio-economic development level was identified by the Human Development Index (HDI) for each Province. The urbanization level of each Province was determined by the Index of Urbanization (URBI). Disparities level to access to public health care was identified by taxonomic measure of accessibility (TMA), calculated using resources of health care data. TMA index was compared in the different regions, depending on the level of HDI and URBI. Results There was no linear relationship between accessibility to public healthcare and socio-economic development of each tested region, nor between accessibility to public health care in the Provinces and their urbanization level. During the study, the correlation between the TMA and HDI and URBI alsdo produced a negative result. Conclusions An insufficient number of physicians and the limited value of contracts within the public health service may cause a drop in the availability of the public medical service sector, regardless of regional level of urbanization and socio-economic development.

Keywords

• health care resources
• public health care services
• socio-economic development of the region
• Urbanisation