Medical deserts: SKEMA Business School and Université Côte d’Azur launch France’s first observatory on access to healthcare

Measuring medical deserts to drive action

How can medical deserts be tackled without measuring their scale, evolution and impact on local communities with precision? This is the question the SKEMA-UniCA Observatory on Access to Healthcare aims to address. The tool has been developed as part of the Prevention and Access to Healthcare Chair, created by SKEMA Business School and Université Côte d’Azur.

Open to the public, the observatory brings together data from the CNAM, INSEE and government public databases. It provides a detailed view of healthcare provision at national, regional, departmental, municipal and sub-municipal level.

Its aim is to help public decision-makers, elected representatives, regional health agencies, healthcare professionals and public or private operators identify the real needs of local communities.

A detailed map of access to healthcare

The observatory covers three main categories of healthcare services: self-employed healthcare professionals, hospital services, including emergency departments and psychiatric facilities, and essential infrastructure and services, such as pharmacies and care homes.

In total, 22 categories of healthcare professionals and services are covered. For some indicators, the tool provides data going back up to 15 years.

Thanks to this level of detail, a mayor can identify which medical specialties are present or lacking in different neighbourhoods of their municipality, then compare their area with similar municipalities. Regional health agencies can use the data to guide policies on the distribution of healthcare professionals. Public and private operators can identify areas where new medical facilities should be prioritised.

“Giving local communities the means to act”

“The debate on medical deserts often suffers from a lack of precise indicators that are comparable over time and cover a broad spectrum of healthcare provision. Our aim is to provide elected representatives, healthcare professionals and stakeholders across the health system with a scientific tool that can objectify the real needs of local communities and assess the effectiveness of public policies. Access to healthcare can only be improved over the long term if we are able to measure it with precision, while taking into account all the players in the system,” says Benjamin Montmartin, professor of econometrics and data science at SKEMA Business School and director of the Prevention and Access to Healthcare Chair.

A tool for public policy

The launch of the observatory comes at a time of acute pressure on access to healthcare. Nearly nine million people in France now live in areas affected by medical desertification. In some areas, securing an appointment with a specialist can mean waiting several months.

Certified by Université Côte d’Azur’s Initiative of Excellence, the Prevention and Access to Healthcare Chair studies social and territorial inequalities in health through a multidisciplinary approach combining economics, public health and data science.

Research with real-world impact

“This observatory reflects our ambition to put research at the service of major societal challenges. By combining academic excellence, methodological innovation and open data, we are creating a tool capable of informing public decision-making and contributing in concrete terms to reducing territorial inequalities in access to healthcare,” says Sylvain Antoniotti, vice-president of Université Côte d’Azur’s Initiative of Excellence.

Beyond its scientific dimension, the SKEMA-UniCA Observatory on Access to Healthcare offers a new way of approaching medical deserts. The issue is no longer treated only as a question of medical demographics, but as a matter of territorial governance, based on objective, comparable and accessible data.

At a time when France is seeking ways to guarantee fairer access to healthcare across the country, researchers from SKEMA Business School and Université Côte d’Azur aim to provide public stakeholders with a precise measurement tool to better understand the reality on the ground and act where needs are most acute.