adhinortey-dev/ghana-healthcare-accessibility-gis

GIS project analyzing healthcare facility accessibility and malaria-related spatial risk patterns in Ghana using service areas, cost surfaces, population, roads, and public health risk maps. # Ghana Healthcare Accessibility and Malaria Risk GIS This project uses GIS-based accessibility analysis to examine where malaria-related spatial risk overlaps with limited access to healthcare services in Ghana. The work combines health facility locations, roads, populated places, administrative boundaries, service-area analysis, cost-surface reasoning, and malaria risk mapping. ## Project Question Which areas combine higher malaria risk with weaker access to healthcare facilities, and how can GIS service-area analysis support public health planning? ## Study Focus The analysis focuses on spatial accessibility to health facilities and malaria risk patterns. The final maps identify areas that are: - outside or near the edge of healthcare service areas, - associated with higher malaria risk, - relevant for identifying underserved communities or priority intervention zones. ## Methods - Compiled health facility, populated place, road, administrative boundary, land-cover, malaria risk, and elevation-related GIS layers. - Created healthcare service areas using travel-time/accessibility logic. - Built or used cost-surface outputs to represent movement difficulty across space. - Overlaid malaria risk classes with service accessibility zones. - Produced map layouts showing service coverage, population distribution, malaria risk, and combined priority areas. ## Key Outputs This final overlay map combines malaria risk classes with healthcare service-area information. The result shows that the strongest planning concern is where moderate or high malaria risk overlaps with weaker healthcare access, especially around areas outside or near the edge of the modeled service zones. This map emphasizes where malaria risk intersects with weaker healthcare access. It is useful for identifying possible priority zones for health outreach, service planning, malaria prevention, or improved transport access. This map shows estimated healthcare service areas based on the ` …