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Presentation

Session: Posters
Room: TBA
Time: Fri 13:00-14:30

Presenter: Aliasghar Ahmad Kia Daliri (Lund University. Clinical Sciences, Malmo)

Abstract

Objective: Equity in access to and use of health services is a common goal for policy-makers in most countries. The aim of the present study was to examine geographic distribution of Rural Health Houses (as an important factor in access of rural population to health care system) and identify possible inequalities regarding the distribution of it among 30 provinces of Iran in 2007.

Data and Methods: Census data on the number of provinces population was obtained from the Statistical Centre of Iran. Data related to Rural Health Houses (RHHS) was obtained from Statistics Centre of Health Ministry. The Health Houses-to-rural population ratio (the number of Health Houses per 100,000 rural people) was calculated to compare the distribution of RHHS among provinces. We plotted the Lorenz curve and calculated decile ratio, Gini Index, Atkinson index and Index of Dissimilarity (ID) to our goals.

Results: There is one RHH per 1296 rural person in Iran. Capital province (Tehran) had lowest proportion of RHHS to rural population. The decile ratio, Gini and Atkinson indices for the distribution of RHHS in 2007 were 2.33, 0.118 and 0.026, respectively. The ID for 2007 was 0.08 (8%), which corresponds to 1450 RHHS which should be relocated in order to achieve equality.

Conclusion: Results showed that distribution of RHHS was not much unequally distributed among provinces in 2007. Rural people in some metropolises had lower RHHS in comparison to small ones. One explanation for this is that as referral system was not compulsory, rural people in metropolises have access to more services which was available in these cities. Governing bodies must consider this subject in their calls for making compulsory of referral system in Iran.

Key Terms

Equality, Gini Index, Index of Dissimilarity, Rural Health Houses.

Authors:

Aliasghar Ahmad Kia Daliri (Lund University. Clinical Sciences,Malmo) , Hassan Haghparast (Karolinska Institute. Public Health Sciences) , Hamidreza Safari (Ministry of welfare and social security, Iran. Health Insurance) and Behzad Najafi (Iran University of Medical Sciences. Health Economics)

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