Evaluating the accessibility of health services in cross-border regions of Europe

Summary

This master’s thesis focuses on evaluating the accessibility of selected healthcare services (hospitals, doctors’ offices and pharmacies) in the cross-border regions of the European Union member states, with an emphasis on potential cross-border flows related to healthcare seeking. Its aim is to assess the possibilities for cross-border cooperation in healthcare and to provide a more detailed evaluation of the Czech border regions in a broader socio-economic and demographic context. The theoretical part defines cross-border regions, outlines the healthcare context within the European Union and reviews methods from the Floating Catchment Area family. For the analytical part, the 3SFCA method is implemented using a custom Python script. Based on the accessibility of the three main categories of healthcare services, an overall healthcare accessibility metric is derived and then used as the foundation for evaluating cooperation potential.

The results show that healthcare accessibility in the cross-border regions of the European Union is strongly spatially differentiated and that each evaluated category creates a distinct spatial pattern. On the basis of the overall healthcare accessibility pattern, three types of potential are identified and localised – shared developmental, complementary, and coordination potential. The identified potential is then compared with existing cross-border healthcare projects. In the Czech borderlands, overall healthcare accessibility is further placed into a broader socio-economic context, resulting in the identification and description of seven distinct types of areas.