PROPOSAL OF A NEW METHOD IN INTER-REGIONAL HEALTH PLANNING AGAINST THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC: DETERMINATION OF REGIONAL AGGLOMERATION IN THE ELDERLY BY LOCATION QUOTIENT

Abstract

Although it changes over time, it is known that the coronavirus affects the elderly more severely. The regional dispersion of the elderly is not balanced. Providing health services compatible with the uneven regional dispersion of the elderly may increase success in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. However, this requires the determination of regional agglomerations firstly. Inequality indices such as Gini, Atkinson, Theil, CV only show the overall intensity of the uneven dispersion. What is needed is not to find the intensity of the balanced dispersion, but to find in which regional units the intensity of the agglomeration is. Perhaps a ranking of the agglomerations in regional units can be made using the principal components analysis. However, this time, intensity cannot be determined. If the location quotients are calculated for each regional unit, both the agglomeration intensity can be determined, and grouping can be made based on the agglomeration intensity. Because in LQ theory, there are generally accepted thresholds according to agglomeration values. In this study, the agglomeration intensities of the elderly population aged 65 and over at the district "NUTS 4" level are calculated. Then, the total number of elderly people was determined according to the intensity thresholds. The data used in the analysis is taken from the district population statistics of 2019 which is compiled from TSI. The findings show that 13% of the 11.1 million elderly people aged 65 and over are in districts with full agglomeration, 51% is in districts with strong agglomeration, 28% is in districts with high regional agglomeration, 7% is in districts with average agglomeration, and 1% is in districts with high agglomeration. It can be understood from this that, the elderly people are agglomerated in certain regions and health services should be provided much more intensively in districts with strong-high concentration. With this study, it was possible to carry out both methodological analysis and current situation analysis together.