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Application of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for analysing and Planning of Reproductive Health Services in Pattani Province


3 Analysis
For analyzing TBA services for delivery, criteria to seek clusters of houses of pregnant women who used TBAs’ services were set up as described below:
  1. Locations of Napradu Health Centre;
  2. Locations of TBAs’ houses;
  3. Locations of houses of pregnant women who tend to use TBAs’ services;
  4. Data from HcPro recording pregnant women who delivered by using TBAs’ services;
  5. Distance of pregnant women’s houses to TBAs’ houses;
  6. Distance of pregnant women’s houses to health centres; and
  7. Occupations, ages, educational levels and religion of pregnant women who uses TBAs’ services.
For GIS analysis, several applications were used as followed:
  1. Buffer TBAs’ houses using 500 metres interval;
  2. Buffer the health centre using 500 metres interval;
  3. Overlay pregnant women’s houses over buffered map of TBAs’ houses and buffered map of the health centre. The output map indicated the relationship between locations of pregnant women, distance from their houses to TBAs’ houses and the health centre as shown in Image 3.
  4. Select data of pregnant women who used TBAs’ services recorded by HcPro to see their religion, occupations, ages and educational levels. This is to understand personal and social backgrounds of those who prefer to use TBAs’ services.
  5. Visualize tabular data indicating Haemorrhagic Fever (HF) using GIS. This was to present a better picture of diseases and sickness of Pattani province by showing situation of Haemorrhagic Fever (HF) during 1997 to 2001. Image 4 shows the tabular figures linked and displayed by GIS.

Image 3: Locations of TBAs and Pregnant Women, and Tentative Service Area of TBAs in Na Pradu Sub-district


Image 4: Haemorrhagic Fever in Pattani Province During 1997-2001

4 Conclusion
In launching the pilot project, the GIS database were created. These spatial data were derived from aerial photograph interpretation and verified by ground truth survey. The spatial data were linked with the available health database called HcPro which was the household based data stored in dBASE file format. A social survey was also conducted in almost every households in the selected villages using questionnaires to collect primary data on pregnancy and ANC, involvement of husbands during pregnancy period, family planning and using TBAs’ services.

From the study, it was found that most pregnant women in all villages practiced modern way of family planning. Oral contraceptive was the most popular method used. Most pregnant women delivered in government hospitals or sub-district health centres.

From the analysis, it showed that distances from TBAs and health centre had some influence on pregnant women. It was found that those who lived near the Khok Pho community hospital would go to the hospital when delivered. Using TBAs’ services was found more in Muslim village and majority of them used their services in delivery. Almost all of them found TBAs’ services satisfactory.

It also showed that Islamic pregnant women who used the TBA’s services received lower education and were attached to agricultural sector. From the pilot study, it was recommended that the Pattani PPHO should consider about raising awareness on RH to these Muslim women and mobilizing them to use government services.

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