Risk analysis of health care availability in conflict ridden areas of Hong Local Government Area, Adamawa State, Nigeria

Abstract

The availability of Healthcare has been a challenge is some regions due to the activity of conflict. The availability of steady supply in both conflict and non-conflict-ridden area are very essential to meet up with the medical needs of the community. This study analyzed the risk of healthcare availability in conflict ridden areas of Hong Local Government of Adamawa State, Nigeria. The aim of the study is to examine the pattern of conflict occurrences in the region from 1999 – 2021 and to identify healthcare facilities that are vulnerable to conflicts in the region. Both primary and secondary data were used: the data were collected through the use of GPS in locating health care centers, data from GRID³ lab software for conflict location and Geographical Information Software (GIS) was also used for the analysis. The study also adopted Kernel density analysis to analyze Hotspot on Healthcare center and conflict point, Euclidian distance analysis was used to determine 30meter progressive buffer of the road to determine how far the health care centers and conflict point are from the road to study if it can be a contributing factor to place the health care center in a vulnerable or risky position. The vulnerability Map was generated using the raster calculator combining the entire different data layer, under different factors, producing a single map. From the result obtained; it was observed that about 20.37% of healthcare centers are within the zone of high-risk exposure to adverse effect of conflict. Provision of security outpost and check points along the road system will help curb the likely adverse effect of conflict occurrence. In as much as there is still 69.73% of available Healthcare centers to complement for the ones at risk.