biostudies-literatureUnknown24(1)Song C<h4>Background</h4>Ensuring universal health coverage and equitable access to health services requires a comprehensive understanding of spatiotemporal heterogeneity in healthcare resources, especially in small areas. The absence of a structured spatiotemporal evaluation framework in existing studies inspired us to propose a conceptual framework encompassing three perspectives: spatiotemporal inequalities, hotspots, and determinants.<h4>Methods</h4>To demonstrate our three-perspective conceptual framework, we employed three state-of-the-art methods and analyzed 10 years' worth of Chinese county-level hospital bed data. First, we depicted spatial inequalities of hospital beds within provinces and their temporal inequalities through the spatial Gini coefficient. Next, we identified different BMC public health423https://www.ebi.ac.uk/biostudies/studies/S-EPMC11218403biostudies-literatureRevealing spatiotemporal inequalities, hotspots, and determinants in healthcare resource distribution: insights from hospital beds panel data in 2308 Chinese counties.PMC11218403Tang ZPan JTian FZhang YXie MSong CLin XLiu QXu SWang XFang LfalseRevealing spatiotemporal inequalities, hotspots, and determinants in healthcare resource distribution: insights from hospital beds panel data in 2308 Chinese counties.<h4>Background</h4>Ensuring universal health coverage and equitable access to health services requires a comprehensive understanding of spatiotemporal heterogeneity in healthcare resources, especially in small areas. The absence of a structured spatiotemporal evaluation framework in existing studies inspired us to propose a conceptual framework encompassing three perspectives: spatiotemporal inequalities, hotspots, and determinants.<h4>Methods</h4>To demonstrate our three-perspective conceptual framework, we employed three state-of-the-art methods and analyzed 10 years' worth of Chinese county-level hospital bed data. First, we depicted spatial inequalities of hospital beds within provinces and their temporal inequalities through the spatial Gini coefficient. Next, we identified different 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z2024 Feb2025-04-21T16:13:02.908Z2025-04-21T16:13:02.908ZS-EPMC112184033833670910.1186/s12889-024-17950-y