ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Aging and Public Health
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1559463
Optimizing Spatial Accessibility and Equity of Hierarchical Elderly Care Facilities Using a Multi-Modal Two-Step Floating Catchment Area Method: A Case Study of Lin'an District, Hangzhou
Provisionally accepted
- 1School of Landscape Architecture, Zhejiang Agriculture and Forestry University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China
- 2School of Civil Engineering & Architecture, Zhejiang University of Science and Technology, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China
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The global aging trend is becoming increasingly pronounced, and the accessibility and equity of elderly care facilities directly influence the health and quality of life of the elderly population, thus representing a critical issue in public health research and policy-making. Using Lin'an District, Hangzhou as an illustrative case, this research examines urban-rural integrated areas specifically, addressing the persistent challenge of supply-demand mismatches in elderly care facility allocation and seeking to optimize their spatial configuration. A comprehensive analytical framework based on the multi-modal two-step floating catchment area (2SFCA) method was established, integrating the Gini coefficient, Lorenz curve, and local spatial autocorrelation analysis to systematically evaluate the spatial accessibility and equity of elderly care facilities.The results demonstrate significant spatial heterogeneity in facility accessibility, revealing a clear distribution pattern characterized by higher accessibility in the eastern urban core and markedly lower accessibility in western rural regions, thereby highlighting notable supply-demand imbalances between urban and rural contexts. Furthermore, the application of local spatial autocorrelation effectively identified key regions characterized by pronounced inequities, notably rural areas in the west suffering severe resource deficiencies and transitional urban-rural zones where supply-demand conflicts prominently occur. The study further investigates critical factors underlying accessibility and equity disparities, including differences in transportation infrastructure, uneven elderly population distributions, and hierarchical classifications of service facilities.Ultimately, the findings provide valuable empirical insights and policy recommendations applicable to urban-rural integration contexts globally, contributing meaningfully to the advancement of age-friendly societies.
Keywords: Elderly service facilities, two-step mobility search method, Spatial accessibility, multiple trips, multiple tiers Optimizing Elderly Care Facilities in Lin'an via 2SFCA
Received: 12 Jan 2025; Accepted: 25 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Gu, Li and Zheng. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Guoquan Zheng, School of Landscape Architecture, Zhejiang Agriculture and Forestry University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China
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