The purpose of this study is to reveal the regional disparity in the allocation of medical resources for each of the secondary medical care district (medical district) which is regional unit to develop medical care system. In this study, grasp the amount of access distance as excess or deficiency of medical service from the viewpoint of accessibility of residents. And analyzed the regional characteristics of the medical districts there is a disparity in the allocation of medical resources. In addition, we expect to be basic materials for deploying the policies of the medical system for the future.
In this study, population and household composition, land-use, industrial structure and employment structure was defined as regional characteristics. First, it was classified by the regional characteristics in order to grasp the structure of medical districts. Secondary, it was compared the accessibility of each classification in order to clarify the regional disparities in the allocation of medical resources. The road distance from the residence to the nearest medical facilities were defined as accessibility. The medical facilities were analyzed by subject of medical treatment. Analysis targets were internal medicine, pediatrics, orthopedics and obstetrics and gynecology.
By typifying the medical districts, there were many medical districts consist of the combination of municipalities with a variety of regional characteristics. In contrast, there are few medical district consist of similar municipalities of regional characteristics. In the analysis of the accessibility, it was revealed that there were disparities in the accessibility between the medical district with high proportion of the urban area (type A) and with relatively high proportion of depopulated area (type H). There were a disparity over 5 times in the average distance between these two types. In the analysis of each subject of medical treatment, there was a trend that the subject of medical treatment with much number of patients per capita is accessible. In addition, it was revealed when the similarity of the regional characteristics of municipalities that compose the medical districts is high, the disparity in the area is small.
Even if there is a sufficient amount of medical resources for population, the medical service is insufficient when considering actual distribution of population and location of medical facilities. Therefore, to solve the regional disparities in the medical care systems, it is necessary to maintain the systems based on each regional characteristics, not to maintain by the uniform standard of the whole country.
