Measuring the Development Degree of Public Health Care Services in Border Regions of Iran (Case study: West Azerbaijan province)

Abstract

One of the indices of a development, whose geographical distribution is uneven among the cities of Iran, is the health care index. The regional imbalance of development indices in most third world countries acts as a center-periphery. Such that the farther we get from the center towards the border regions, the lesser the intensity of development becomes. Therefore, the marginal areas and border regions are always among the least developed regions of these countries. In this research, in order to identify and determine the degree of the development of the West Azerbaijan province cities which is one of the North West border provinces of Iran, 7 indices in public health care services for 2011 belonging to 17 cities were studied, and the results were evaluated using the numerical taxonomy technique. Data collection was performed using library method. The ranking results showed that Urmia city is the most developed city and in the next stage, cities of Khoy and Miandoabare of cities with average to high enjoyment degrees. The least enjoyments belong to Oshnavie, Poldasht, Chaipare and Shot cities. The other cities also do not have appropriate positions in this index. Therefore, this province, as a frontier and disadvantaged province, has a long journey towards achieving sustainable development. It's necessary to adopt balancing regional policies and optimally distribute facilities.