Assessing Potential Spatial Accessibility to Primary Health Care Facilities using Enhanced Two Step Floating Catchment Area Method in Fort Portal Municipality ,Kabarole District.

Abstract

Access to Primary Health Care services is a significant factor that contributes to good health in the community. Achieving equitable and easy access to health services remains one of the challenges to ensuring healthy lives. The government’s policy of accessibility to health care captures proximity using buffer zones which is unrealistic to the real-world phenomena. This study employed the enhanced two-step floating catchment area method to access the potential accessibility to Primary Health Care facilities in Fort Portal Municipality, Kabarole district. The method was implemented using geospatial analysis techniques by considering the demand for health services, the supply of the health centers, and the travel distances to access the health services. The results from the research method showed that 92% of household locations were within the threshold distance of 5 kilometers for access to health services. This was in contradiction to the government’s policy of accessibility to health care that showed 100% of the household locations were within the threshold distance of 5 kilometers from a health care facility. In order to provide equal and easy spatial access to health care services for the population and also to ensure that limited health resources are allocated appropriately, health service planners can incorporate such a method to an existing spatial health system to facilitate the proper planning and equitable distribution of health resources.