Evaluation of Domain of Influence of Community Health Service Facilities from the Perspective of Elder-friendly Areas for Walking:A Case Study based on the Old Residential Area in Longhai Street,Guancheng District,Zhengzhou City
The aging population has led to an increasing demand for community health service facilities by the elderly.Effective evaluation methods and techniques are urgently needed to assess the service performance of these facilities.Existing evaluation methods mostly focus on the macro level,emphasizing the overall measurement of the regional service level of community health service facilities.However,there is no consensus on how to accurately define the influence range of community health service facilities on elderly walking behaviors based on urban spatial morphology and elderly walking ability,or how to evaluate their service performance.In this study,the elderly-friendly areas enclosed by urban expressways or main roads and rivers in Longhai Street,Guancheng District,Zhengzhou City were chosen as the study area.The space and behaviors of the old residential areas were viewed as a complicated system.A correlation model between walking behaviors and the urban space was built.Based on field surveys,the walking behaviors of the elderly were simulated using behavioral simulation technology.The domains of influence of four community health service facilities(two community health service stations and two community health service centers)in the elder-friendly areas were determined by combining the road network morphology and residential area distribution.According to differences in area and scale,the domain of influence of the two community health service stations was mainly delineated within a five-minute living circle(the theoretical threshold of the service radius was 300 m),while the domain of influence of the two community health service centers was mainly delineated within a 15-minute living circle(the theoretical threshold of the service radius was 800 m).According to the urban path,spatial range of the residential area,boundary ownership,entrances and exits,the above domains of influence were thoroughly revised according to the accessible region of potential paths for walking behaviors of the elderly.Subsequently,the revised domains of influence were overlapped to finally obtain the comprehensive domain of influence of the four community health service facilities.The performance of the community health service facilities was evaluated in terms of their coverage capacity,balance,and accessibility and some optimization suggestions were proposed.The coverage capacity of the facilities was evaluated by their area coverage rate and the number of residential areas covered.The coverage areas of the domains of influence of the four community health service facilities all failed to meet their theoretical scope,with service radii of 300 and 800 m under the concentric mode,far lower than the coverage area standard of the theoretical thresholds.The number of residential areas covered by three community health service facilities was higher than 50％,indicating that most residential communities in the elder-friendly area could be covered.The number of residential areas covered by one community health service facility was only 40％.This was related to the low compactness of the surrounding urban space,the low density of residential areas and poor accessibility.The balance of facilities was evaluated by the average nearest neighbor distance.The two community health service centers were relatively close to other elder care facilities in the elder-friendly area,indicating that community health service facilities had a good layout relationship with other community facilities in the elderly-friendly area and that the overall balance was reasonably ideal.However,the two community health service stations were far from other elder care facilities in the walking-friendly area,revealing unsatisfactory layout relationships and balance.Accessibility was evaluated using the pedestrian flow density on main roads.During peak hours,the pedestrian flow density of the four community health service facilities within the elder-friendly area ranged from 0.375 to 1.25 people/square meter.Only one community health service station had poor accessibility and low pedestrian flow.The analysis of the overall pedestrian flow density in the elder-friendly area revealed that the pedestrian flow density differed greatly among different road sections,indicating that there was space to improve the road network structure in the elder-friendly area.Based on these results,it is suggested that the number of health service facilities and community elder care facilities be increased and their types expanded.Additionally,the relationship of health service facilities with community health service facilities should be strengthened,the road network density increased,and the space quality and performance of old residential areas improved.There are some limitations to these research results due to sample size and study area limitations.However,the proposed research method,tools,and evaluation indexes are expected to provide new ideas,new methods,and new tools for evaluating the community service facilities in old residential areas.This study provides a theoretical reference and technological guidance for the improvement of existing communities.
elderly-friendly for walkingbehavior simulationold residential areacommunity health service facilitiesdomain of influenceevaluation
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