Ninth International Conference on Health, Wellness & Society

Abstract

Policy and planning for universal health coverage is usually hampered by the availability of resources required to locate adequate number of healthcare facilities (HCFs) for the entire population, especially in the low- and middle-income countries. Realistically, the geographic distribution and size of the population vary from one location to another. By integrating these factors in establishing HCFs, the decision maker is provided with alternative costs of establishing HCFs that can provide full health coverage at reduced resource allocation. This research integrates Geographic Information Systems (GIS) with Agent-Based Models (ABM) to develop a decision support tool that considers how the population is distributed in space and endogenously suggests locations for HCFs in Apapa-Ajeromi and Lagos Island Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Lagos State, Nigeria. A cost weight is introduced that uses the patient capacity of the HCF to decide if such HCF is to be established with lower resource allocation as opposed to standard establishment cost. Results show that the number of HCFs is not indicative of a higher establishment cost. The total number of HCFs required in addition to existing HCFs is between 6 and 12. A set of HCFs either comprises of low-cost and standard HCFs or is exclusively standard HCFs. The economical HCFs provide a valuable support for community-based health intervention of establishing community clinics within lower densely populated areas.