Are city population and the number of emergency medical facilities correlated?
BACKGROUND
The shortage of physicians is reported in the small cities in Japan, but the mal-distribution of physicians and emergency medical facilities has not been fully investigated.


METHODS
Survey of Medical Institutions, 2005, Survey of Physicians, Dentists and Pharmacists, 2004, and 2005 Population Census of Japan were used. The relationships between city population and the numbers of medical resources such as emergency medical facilities, physicians and pediatricians were analyzed.


RESULTS
The population and the number of emergency medical facilities of 895 cities were strongly correlated (r = 0.800, P = 0.000), and the numbers of the physicians and pediatricians had strong relationships to city population.


CONCLUSIONS
All the cities cannot provide 24 h emergency services, therefore access time to medical facilities should be shortened by the construction of a transportation network instead of dispatching physicians to remote districts.
Ehara
Akira
A
Department of Public Health, Hokkaido University Graduate School of Medicine, Hokkaido, Japan. akira.ehara@nifty.com
D004632:Emergency Medical Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006268:Health Facilities / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006297:Health Services Accessibility; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D010372:Pediatrics; D010820:Physicians / Q000600:supply & distribution; D011153:Population; D000078329:Workforce