Multiscale evaluation of an urban deprivation index: Implications for quality of life and healthcare accessibility planning

Deprivation indices are widely used to identify areas characterized by above average social and/or material disadvantages. Especially spatial approaches have become increasingly popular since they enable decision makers to identify priority areas and to allocate their resources accordingly. An array of methods and spatial reporting units have been used to analyze and report deprivation in previous studies. However, a comparative analysis and assessment of the implications of the choice of the reporting unit for quality of life and health care accessibility planning is still missing. Based on a set of ten socioeconomic and health-related indicators, we constructed a weighted deprivation index for the urban area of Quito, Ecuador, using four different reporting units, including census blocks, census tracts, and two units based on the automatic zoning procedure (AZP). Spatial statistics and metrics are used to compare the resulting units, and a participatory expert-based approach is applied to evaluate their suitability for decision making processes. Besides structural differences regarding their size and shape, no strongly marked statistical or qualitative differences were found in the four analyzed spatial representations of deprivation. The four representations revealed similar spatial patterns of deprivation, with higher levels of deprivation in the peripheries of the city, especially in the southern and north-western parts. The study also suggests that census blocks, due to their fine spatial resolution, were considered most useful for quality of life and health care accessibility planning by local stakeholders.