• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
• /
• v.23 no.2
• /
• pp.388-402
• /
• 2017

This paper presents an enhancement of the two-step floating catchment area (2SFCA) method for measuring spatial accessibility between three age groups, addressing the problem of uniform access within the catchment by applying multiple impedance function to account for distance decay and by applying weights to different age groups to account for medical service preference. The enhancement is provided to be another special care of the gravity model. When applying this modified three-step floating catchment area to measure the spatial access to emergency medical services in a study area, Chungnam province in South Korea, we find that it reveals the variation of spatial accessibility patterns between cities and rural areas and delineates more spatially explicit medical service shortage areas in southern Chungnam areas, especially remoted local rural areas. Finally, this method may be used to help the health and medical service divisions and the state departments improve designation of medical shortage areas. From the discussions, it is easy to implement in planning spatial policies of medical service and straightforward to be used as a basic, but core element for health and medical strategies in the province.