Regional Imbalance and Social Equity in Access to Emergency Medical Services in Busan Metropolitan City

This study aimed to analyze the regional imbalance and social equity of access to emergency medical services in Busan Metropolitan City and to present urban planning measures to enhance equity. According to a prior study, access to emergency medical services may be hampered by spatial and social equity. In this study, detailed figures through GIS spatial analysis were presented to test the above discussion. Network analysis, hotspot analysis, and natural breaks classification were used for the GIS spatial analysis. The results of the analysis revealed an inequality between regions in terms of accessibility to emergency medical services in Busan, but it was difficult to generalize that social equity was occurring. However, a closer analysis confirmed that there existed areas within the "gu" where the social equity of emergency medical services was greatly hampered.