Spatial analysis of healthcare services availability and demand for people aged 65 and over in Québec

TL;DR

This study maps healthcare services and aging populations in Québec, showing urban areas have more resources than rural ones.

Contribution

The study provides a spatial analysis of healthcare availability and aging population needs in Québec, highlighting regional disparities.

Findings

Healthcare services and LTC beds vary significantly between urban and rural regions in Québec.

LTC beds correlate strongly with the number of people aged 65 and over but not their proportion.

Service availability and variability are higher in urban areas like Montréal.

Abstract

As people age, their healthcare needs increase and become more complex, requiring a corresponding increase in healthcare and services use. Moreover, heterogeneity of healthcare needs and availability can be observed among the health regions within Canadian provinces, especially between rural and urban regions. The province of Québec has received limited attention in this regard. This study aims to describe and compare healthcare services location and aging population healthcare demand across Québec.

We used data from Données Québec to describe the distribution of available healthcare (such as facilities, their services and capacity) and potential demand of services (represented by the location of the aged population) and mapped their relationship based on urbanization level. Analyses were performed using QGIS and R software.

We found a substantial variability of the population aged 65 and over, the number of facilities, the number and type of services, and long-term care (LTC) beds between regions in Québec. The number of LTC beds was significantly correlated with the number of people aged 65 and over (R² = 0.88, p < 0.001), but not with their proportion. LTC accommodation is a service most offered in urban areas, especially in the Montréal region.

Healthcare availability in Québec is associated with the number of older people and there tend to be fewer services, including LTC, overall and per older person in rural as compared to urban areas. Variability of the number of facilities and services provided was higher at the local scale.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s43999-026-00085-5.

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