Regional disparities in the distribution of public and private healthcare facilities in South Korea.

ABSTRACT: Unequal healthcare facility distributions remain a critical concern in South Korea, where medical resources are disproportionately concentrated in metropolitan areas, leading to disparities in the availability of services between regions. These spatial disparities are also influenced by broader contextual factors such as socioeconomic inequality and transportation infrastructure, which interact with access to care. Focusing on the spacial dimension of these disparities, this study investigates the spatial distribution of public and private medical facilities by analyzing their allocation patterns to identify underlying principles associated with these distributional trends, using a cost optimization approach rooted in statistical physics. By employing concentration index ([Formula: see tex

SUBMITTER: Park J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12459777 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature