ABSTRACT
Introduction: access to health care is one of the main goals in all societies. This study aimed to investigate the access level in provinces in Iran
Methods: this descriptive-applied and cross-sectional study was conducted in 2012. Statistical population consisted of all provinces in Iran. Data were collected through library and online research. The Ministry of Health and Medical Education and Statistics Center of Iran as authorities of Information, were referred to for collecting relevant data. Taxonomy techniques were used to assess the of development level of provinces, Shannon entropy techniques were used to determine the weights of indicators and TOPSIS techniques were employed to rank states in terms of access to health care
Results: based on Taxonomy technique from among 31 provinces, 12 provinces were considered to be developed, 9 semi-developed and 10 underdeveloped. Based on Shannon entropy, the ratio of the number of pharmacists to province population was the most important indicator. According to TOPSIS, in term of access to health services; Markazi and Ardabil provinces ranked the first and the last respectively
Conclusion: due to the large differences among provinces, planners and officials are recommended to allocate the funds according to the development level
ABSTRACT
Introduction: reciving and using health care services is called utilization and access to services refers to the opportunity and the ability to use them. The purpose of this study was to investigate the pattern of utilization and access to health care disparities and factors affecting them
Methods: in this cross-sectional study, Quota sampling method was used. To evaluate the health care services used by families and their relationship with Predisposing variables, Chi-square test and Pearson cross-tabulations were used using Excel and Stata
Results: according to the findings important variables such as Household economic status, insurance, head of household education; ages over 65 and less than 12 years had key roles in the use of services. Concentration indices for out-patient and in-patient services were -0.38 and -0.435, respectively
Conclusion: there are some predisposing variable leading to inequality in use of health services which could be reduced the improvement of socio-economic variables
ABSTRACT
Introduction: There are several indicators to determine the level of development of a country or a region. Indicators of healthcare are among the most important indicators in every country
Methods: This applied, descriptive, cross-sectional study surveyed all countries [n=24] in Iranian development vision in 2012. In order to collect data, the database of World Bank and World Health Organization were used as references. The taxonomy technique was employed to determine the degree of development of different countries. In addition, indices were weighed by Shannon's entropy. Finally, technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution [TOPSIS] was used to rank the countries in term of access to health sector indicators
Results: Taxonomy technique showed that out of 24 countries under study, 10, 7, and 7 countries were developed, semi-developed, and under-developed, respectively. Shannon entropy introduced the incidence of tuberculosis as the most important indicator and the women's life expectancy at birth the least significant indicator. According to TOPSIS, the countries of United Arab Emirates and Afghanistan ranked the first and the last [24th] in access to health services
Conclusion: Considering that in 1404 Iran must be the first country in the region in terms of indicators of access to health care, we recommend all planners and officials to allocate funds to overcome the shortcomings of the indicators such as health care expenditure per capita in which Iran has not been successful yet