GeoCNES: healthcare mapping in Brazilian cities - a computational tool for improved decision-making

GeoCNES: mapeamento da saúde em cidades do Brasil - uma aplicação automatizada para auxiliar na tomada de decisão

Ensuring equitable access to healthcare facilities is crucial for urban well-being, but geographical barriers often impede this access. This paper introduces GeoCNES, an open-source tool developed in Python to address this challenge. GeoCNES establishes a connection to the Brazilian national healthcare establishments register and the census data, to process and geocoding them to automatically generate an interactive map that display the distribution of healthcare facilities and a heat map of the same facilities in Brazilian municipalities. To do so the user must enter the municipality code and facility type, then GeoCNES retrieves, geolocates, and exhibit the information in interactive maps. This paper details the development process, functionalities, and limitations of GeoCNES, demonstrating its application in the Brazilian cities of São Carlos-SP, Rondonópolis-MT, Chapecó-SC, Parnamirim-RN and Parauapebas-PA. While challenges related to data inconsistency were encountered, GeoCNES successfully maps healthcare facilities, offering valuable insights for urban planning and promoting equitable access to healthcare.

Key words:
Healthcare mapping; Geographic information systems; Spatial analysis; Healthcare planning; Python