Rationale

A health catchment area is a region served by a health facility or health plan, and delineated by population distribution, geography, or transportation pattern. 6

Health catchment areas are the minimum baseline health spatial data used by Ministries of Health and medical organizations to monitor health surveillance. 7 Documenting the catchment area of a health facility is important for assessing health service utilization and calculating population-based disease rates. Different approaches have been used to define catchment areas, some of which use distance to facility (straight line or distance travelled by patients). A variety of methodologies have been proposed and used by health and humanitarian organizations for the creation and distribution of health catchment area geospatial databases (e.g governments may follow the 5Km radius method which has challenges when it comes to terrain). This has led to fragmentation of data, duplication of efforts and uncoordinated response to health emergencies especially in the humanitarian sector. A collaborative and coordinated approach is necessary to create a more mature geospatial data ecosystem to allow faster and more effective response to outbreaks.

Figure 1: Representation of a health area with 2 sub-health zones and their respective health facilities and catchment areas (Source: MSF)