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[An attempt to estimate geographical accessibility to day service facilities among the elderly with a geographical information system].

OBJECTIVE
The objective of this study was to assess inequality in geographical accessibility to day service among the elderly in a municipality using a geographical information system (GIS). We also examined problems in measuring geographical accessibility and ways to validate results.


METHODS
The target was Hachioji City. The following two data sets were constructed: a data set for day service facilities for all of Hachioji City and a data set for the people aged 65 and over, living within 1 km meshes in Hachioji City. These were integrated and displayed on a digital map with GIS software. Geographical accessibility was estimated by measuring the shortest road distance from the center point of each mesh to day service facilities.


RESULTS
There were 47 day service facilities serving Hachioji City in October, 2000 and 139 meshes that had elderly residents. Their center points were all located within Hachioji City, which was estimated to have 73,760 elderly in 2000. The mean distance from the center point of each mesh to the nearest day service facility was 1.99 km (SD = 1.75, max = 9.21, min = 0.03). The proportions of the elderly who had 5 or more facilities within 3 km and 5 km from their residence were estimated to be 57.3% and 96.4%, respectively.


CONCLUSIONS
The results of this study suggest that there is variation in geographical accessibility to day service facilities among the elderly living in a relatively large municipality. It is now necessary to examine whether the difference in geographical accessibility to day service affects the service utilization.