{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,11]],"date-time":"2026-03-11T02:01:16Z","timestamp":1773194476650,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":35,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"3","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,8]],"date-time":"2026-03-08T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1772928000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Major Program of the National Natural Science Foundation of China","award":["42293272"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["42293272"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["IJGI"],"abstract":"<jats:p>This study aims to address gaps in understanding healthcare accessibility inequality in rural China, where traditional distance-based assessments and urban-centric biases are insufficient. By integrating real-time travel data from Amap and the two-step floating catchment area (2SFCA) method, we conducted a high-resolution (1 km grid) analysis across transportation modes, administrative scales, and time-sensitive populations. Results reveal that driving enables more stable, equitable access (characterized by higher supply\u2013demand ratios and lower variability) than public transport, which distorts ratios due to limited coverage. Accessibility disparities are most pronounced at the county scale, with eastern rural counties (e.g., Yangtze River Delta) showing far higher accessibility (log10(A-value) &gt; 5.0) than remote western counties (log10(A-value) &lt; 1.5). High time-sensitive populations (urgent care) face extreme accessibility gaps, with only 15% of counties providing optimal access. In contrast, low time-sensitive groups benefit from extended travel time thresholds, achieving 62% coverage of optimal access. Targeted interventions\u2014investing in rural high-tier hospitals, enhancing transit frequency, and county-specific policies\u2014are needed to advance health equity. The findings of this study provide the first nationwide high-resolution healthcare accessibility map for rural China, improve assessment accuracy via real-time data, and identify county-level gaps\u2014offering data-driven insights for targeted policies to advance health equity and support rural revitalization.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/ijgi15030112","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,9]],"date-time":"2026-03-09T08:58:45Z","timestamp":1773046725000},"page":"112","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["More Effort Is Needed to Mitigate Spatial Inequality in Rural China\u2019s Healthcare Accessibility: Evidence from a High-Resolution, Multi-Scale and Time-Sensitive Assessment"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"15","author":[{"given":"Ying","family":"Gao","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental Information System, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China"},{"name":"College of Resources and Environment, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-5438-0510","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Xiaoran","family":"Wu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental Information System, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China"},{"name":"College of Resources and Environment, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Mingxiao","family":"Xu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental Information System, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China"},{"name":"College of Resources and Environment, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Yanlei","family":"Ye","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Zhengyuan Geomatics Group Co., Ltd., Beijing 101300, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4434-1726","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Na","family":"Zhao","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental Information System, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China"},{"name":"College of Resources and Environment, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China"},{"name":"Jiangsu Center for Collaborative Innovation in Geographic Information Resource Development and Application, Nanjing 210023, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,8]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"50","DOI":"10.1016\/j.apgeog.2018.01.011","article-title":"Inequality of public health and its role in spatial accessibility to medical facilities in China","volume":"92","author":"Yin","year":"2018","journal-title":"Appl. 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