Determining Demand for Rural Healthcare Facilities in Developing Countries

Geotechnologies provide decision support for numerous public health issues such as determining locations of healthcare facilities for a given population. With limited population health data available for developing countries, geotechnologies provide little benefit in this regard. This report attempts to assist public health practitioners in overcoming the health information gaps common to developing countries for determining health related demand locations. We introduce methodologies that use generally available information from Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS). Burkina Faso, a developing country and a country with poor health quality, is used in this report as a case study to show how limited data, and data not generally considered for spatial analysis, can be used to locate multiple demand locations for healthcare. The clustering of health related locations and population densities along access routes and in proximity to villages ultimately determined the final demand healthcare facility locations.