ABSTRACT
Health care is an important component of general health and well-being, even if the type and/or delivery mechanism varies across different political, economic, cultural and organizational perspectives. For example, hospitals, clinics and other facilities where health care expertise is made available are in constant demand, regardless of their geographical setting (for example, urban or rural). For this and other reasons, the location of health care services is vital so that people have access to primary and secondary care, emergency medicine, preventive care, diagnostics and testing, treatment, surgery, physiatry, public health, etc. Further, it is well known that proximity and access are highly correlated with service utilization (Abernathy and Hershey, 1972; Mayhew and Leonardi, 1982; Tanser, Gething and Atkinson, 2009; Alegana et al., 2012; Wang, 2012). The better the access and the closer people are, the more likely they are to utilize health care services.
