The Construction of GIS Model for the Identification of Suitable Dental Health Service Areas

Abstract

The aims of this research were to develop the geographical database, and the application of geographic information system to identify suitable dental health services areas. The research method consists of two factor analyses, and the results from the analyses were used to create the models to locate appropriate dental health services locations. It was founded that the major factors that affect dental health services significantly (p<0.05) are the ranks of hospitals, experiences of dentists, number of dentists in dental health service centers and dental health care systems. Analysis of accessibility of dental health services was mainly based on distances between patients and dental health service centers. The result shows that 13.53% of patients did not received the services from the closest dental health service centers. Thus, these patients paid the higher expenses than they should be. Two proposed models to locate appropriate dental health services locations for Songkhla province were based on the social factors, the economic factors, and the infrastructures. By validating the models, it was found that the located areas are mostly agreed with the existing public dental health service centers.