ABSTRACT
This chapter describes several specific geographic techniques that can aid in the assessment of geographic accessibility. It addresses an overview of the geographic perspective on health care delivery precedes a discussion of the main issues in health care provision for rural adult populations with such techniques as maps and graphs. The chapter aims to assess the health care needs, resource availability, geographic accessibility, and utilization patterns of older adults living in rural areas. Rural older persons often have special needs: transportation may be an especially important concern and isolation can be a serious problem. Health care supply is a distributional concern, so dot maps can be made for a wide range of items, including physicians with varying specialties, nurses, dentists, alternative healers, hospitals with various levels of service, specialist clinics, long-term care facilities, and social services such as meals-on-wheels and nutritional counseling.
