Primary care accessibility in rural regions : A comparative study of Norway and Sweden.

Abstract: This thesis has examined and compared physical accessibility to primary care facilities, or health centers, in two rural regions, one located in Sweden, and one located in Norway. The study areas are Västerbotten county in Sweden, and Nordland county in Norway. The analysis has been conducted via a service area analysis in ArcGIS, where the relative distance in terms of travel time to the health center determines accessibility. Good accessibility is defined as less than an hour of total travel time, including the return journey. Overall, accessibility is good in both study areas with around 95% of the population having good accessibility, while a vast majority of people live within five minutes one way to the nearest health center. However, there is a difference between the two study areas, where the Västerbotten population generally has better accessibility than their Norwegian counterpart. These differences are despite the fact that Nordland has almost double the amount of health centers that Västerbotten has. Overall, these differences appear to primarily be due to differences in population pattern, which in turn can be seen as a part of the difference in regional policy between the two countries, although it is hard to pinpoint the full effect that regional policy has on primary care accessibility.