Assessing spatial disparities of accessibility to community-based service resources for Chinese older adults based on travel behavior: A city-wide study of Nanjing, China

• Published in: Habitat international 2019-06, Vol.88, p.101984, Article 101984
• Main Authors: Zhang, Fan, Li, Dezhi, Ahrentzen, Sherry, Zhang, Jiankun
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Accessibility; Community-based services; Older adults; Spatial disparities; Travel behavior; Two-step floating catchment area method
• ISSN: 0197-3975; 1873-5428
• DOI: 10.1016/j.habitatint.2019.05.003

The group of older adults keep increasing recent years, especially in China. With a high preference to aging in place, government should provide essential and enough supports for older adults, and the community-based service is an important part of supports. In order to be equitable, the accessibility to community-based services for older adults should be similar wherever they live. Consequently, main aims of this study are to assess the accessibility to community-based services for older adults, detect spatial disparities of accessibility, and then identify the well-developed area and the under-developed area for the future optimization of community-based service allocation. As one of the earliest city developing the community-based service, Nanjing is chosen to be the study area to provide valuable experience to other cities. The average nearest neighbor analysis is applied at first in order to ensure the distribution pattern of community-based service centers. Then according to the travel behavior of older adults, various accessibilities to community-based service centers for older adults with different travel modes is calculated and compared by Gaussian two-step floating catchment area (G2SFCA) method. Most importantly, travel behavior-based G2SFCA (TB-G2SFCA) method is proposed as a new method to assess accessibility for older adults with their travel behavior. Besides, in the calculation process, the whole city area is divided into uniform cells for improving calculation accuracy. At last, spatial disparities of accessibility with travel behavior are identified in five suburban districts and one central district by using Anselin Local Moran's I, and the low-accessibility area in these six districts are confirmed as the weakness area lacking community-based services. Enhancing community-based services in weakness areas, and reducing the spatial disparities of accessibility for older adults within these six districts are urgent issues to be solved by the government in the following development. •Accessibilities to community-based services for older adults by different travel modes are calculated and compared.•The travel behavior-based G2SFCA is proposed to assess the accessibility for older adults based on their travel behavior.•The whole study area is grid transformed into uniform cells for improving accuracy.•The low-accessibility area is identified in terms of the Anselin Local Moran's I of accessibility with travel behavior.