Location, use, and locational efficiency of health facilities in a Madras neighbourhood.

The present paper has two related aims: an attempt to measure locational efficiency of health facilities in a Madras neighbourhood - Alandur - through an analysis of use patterns obtained from a questionnaire study, and an application of two significant methods on problems relating to organisation of health services - set covering reasoning and maximal covering location method. Some major conclusions of the two related analyses are: - Generally use declines with distance. However, beyond the eleventh distance zone, the use increases sharply, only to decrease after the fourteenth distance zone, the number of visits attributable to quality services at locations in these distance zones. - Among the variables determining the use patterns, distance is most important, followed by cost of treatment, the quality care, nature of facility and its availability. - Set covering method yielded 5 potential health location sites which proved to be efficient in both population coverage and maximum time distances of five and ten minutes /maximal covering location method/. Two alternative sets identified by set covering method proved to be inefficient on both population and distance counts when maximal covering method was applied.