A GIS-based approach to identifying communities underserved by primary health care services—An Afghanistan case study

Frontiers in Public Health · 4 authors, 2 centres

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TL;DR

The analysis found that 25% of the population, living in 22,181 villages, resides in underserved areas where services are not within a 1-hour walk.

Full summary

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The central finding is that 9.5 million people, or 25% of the total population, live in villages where primary health care is not accessible within a 1-hour walk.

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other

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public health

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ORIGINAL PAPER

PMC10552865

A GIS-based approach to identifying communities underserved by primary health care services—An Afghanistan case study

Frontiers in Public Health

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ABSTRACT

Abstract Afghanistan has been in an active state of conflict and war for twenty continuous years. Social services like health and education have been badly affected, facing issues such as service disruption, brain drain, and generalized instability. Health indices that provide proxy indicators for general population wellness, such as maternal health, child mortality, and immunization coverage, show that the health services available to the Afghan population are sub-optimal. Investment in social service and interventions has increased. The World Bank and the United Nations through its agencies (The World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations' Children's Fund (UNICEF) are providing social support through targeted and strategic programs. However, the topographic and environmental realities of Afghanistan, with its broad mountain coverage, propensity toward natural disasters, and latent conflict, has made data and information gathering arduous. Since data is essential for measurement and management, the WHO Health Emergencies (WHE) information management unit at WHO Afghanistan has delivered an innovative form of data analysis, specialized and targeted at providing improved information on communities that are not adequately covered by health services. Deploying a geographical information system (GIS) approach, the WHE team has collated primary and secondary data from a combination of datasets to produce a far-reaching piece of analysis. The analysis of underserved communities in hard to reach, remote locations, provides a live, evidence-based information product. This provides a working tool that is essential to primary health programming and intervention in Afghanistan. The estimates show that approximately 9.5 million individuals in 22,181 villages across 34 provinces are underserved by primary health services. This paper is presented to explain the underpinning methodology. Keywords: primary health care, underserved and unserved populations, Afghanistan, geographical information system (GIS), health indicator

CITATION EXPORT

Ramesh Nassery Mohammed, Abdullah Khawari, Jerome Aondona Shaguy et al.. A GIS-based approach to identifying communities underserved by primary health care services—An Afghanistan case study. Frontiers in Public Health. (2023). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2023.1209986

AUTHORS

4 · 2 CENTRES

Ramesh Nassery Mohammed, Abdullah Khawari, Jerome Aondona Shaguy, Alaa Abouzied

1Health Emergency, World Health Organization, Kabul, Afghanistan
2Public Health Department, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University, Giza, Egypt