Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Turkish Studies (Elektronik), cilt.16, sa.1, ss.187-201, 2021 (Hakemli Dergi)
Health geography studies is a research area that tries to bring solutions to the problems in this field by examining the relationship between health and geography in the space, health problems, and health services. In the research, accessibility to Family Health Centers (FHC) located in Salihli, a large city of Manisa province, was investigated. The population size of the city and the presence of many FHCs in the city were effective in the selection of the Salihli city as the research area. In addition, significant growth of the city horizontally in the last decade has been taken into consideration in its selection as a research area. The study includes the application of a network method applied by different researchers to a new field in past researches. This study aims to reveal to what extent the FHCs in accordance with family medicine practice located in Salihli district are accessible to the residences in the neighborhoods that make up the center of the city, how many people living in these residences can reach the FHCs by the relevant regulations. In the study, the accessibility status of FHCs in Salihli city was determined by applying network analysis. Numerical (vector) map of FHCs in Salihli, numerical (vector) map of residences, urban transportation network, neighborhood boundaries, and age-based population data according to neighborhoods were used in the analysis. In the study, network analysis was applied by using ArcGis 10.2 program. According to the research findings, the family health centers in the research area are inadequate. When the accessibility status of the city population is revealed, no neighborhood remains completely within the impact area specified in the legislation.