EQUALITY OF SPATIAL ACCESS TO PRIMARY HEALTH SERVICES FOR SINGAPORE'S BABY BOOMERS

Abstract

The ageing baby boomers in Singapore, which account for one-third of the total population in 2006, will have a profound impact on the economy, society and environment. The greatest demand is for health care services. Even though Singapore has generally been regarded as a country where primary health services are easily available to all residents, this paper identifies significant spatial variations across the island-state. In particular, accessibility in some areas with high concentration of boomers is relatively lower compared to other residential areas. This paper concludes that understanding the spatial variation in primary health service accessibility is critical to the success of future policies, which may lead to a review of the provision of such services across the island. The methodology developed in this paper is also applicable to the study of service inequalities in other Asian countries with large rural settings.

Keywords:

• spatial accessibility
• baby boomers
• primary health service
• Geographical Information System
• Singapore

Acknowledgements

This project is supported by the Academic Research Fund (AcRF) at the National Institute of Education, with the source of funding from the Ministry of Education, Singapore (Project No. RI 3/06 LY. The authors gratefully acknowledge the thoughtful and constructive comments from the editor and three anonymous reviewers.