The purpose of this study is to analyze the spatial distribution of medical services in Seoul and its socio-economic causes. This study identifies whether the medical services in Seoul have the appropriate range of goods using buffering. Gangdong, Seo...
The purpose of this study is to analyze the spatial distribution of medical services in Seoul and its socio-economic causes. This study identifies whether the medical services in Seoul have the appropriate range of goods using buffering. Gangdong, Seongbuk, Yangcheon, and Eunpyeong have high location quotients in entire medical services. Wards (Gu) with relatively low economic level have sufficient primary care clinics (internal medicine, surgery, pediatrics, and obstetrics and gynecology) while secondary care clinics (plastic surgery, dermatology, and psychiatry) are concentrated in Gangnam and Seocho, which have the relatively high economic level. Correlation analysis shows that the location of medical services has high relations with income and economic variables such as financial independency, property value, number of fitness centers, number of registered vehicles, and amount of property tax. In sum, this study identifies that although Seoul has the minimum level of medical services, the spatial distribution of the medical services highly depends on consumers' income level owing to the characteristics of the services provided by the market mechanism.