Browsing by Author "Mremi, Irene Ronald"

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Application of geographical information systems in determining the distribution of health care facilities and services: a case study of Mtwara rural district, Southern Tanzania
    (University of Dar es Salaam, 2017) Mremi, Irene Ronald
    Access to health care facilities and services is a significant factor that contributes to a healthy population and it has a direct impact on the burden of disease in developing countries. The importance of the availability of adequate health care facilities in providing sustainable rural development can therefore not be overemphasized. This study explored use of GIS by developing a prototype that uses a web-based GIS spatial approach to portray the distribution of health facilities and their important information and aid the future planning of new health facilities. Data was collected from April to June 2009 involving 38 health facilities of Mtwara district. A hand held global positioning system (GPS) was used to geo-reference the coordinates of all HFs and a questionnaire with both closed and open-ended questions was used to gather information from Patients who attended the respective facilities. Interviews with district officer and HF’s in-charge were conducted and additionally, observation method was used to complement the data that was collected. A prototyping systems development methodology was adapted, database and web based GIS prototype was then developed and tested as a tool to be used to identify health services availability and accessibility. A System’s Deployment Architecture was used to describe the web-based spatial system to establish processing units and the network configuration to generate a web service-mapping visual map layer.