George Marhasin

This paper investigates the spatial accessibility of the senior population to family physicians and geriatricians based on travel time within the Toronto Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) between the 2001 and 2006 census periods. The senior population is rapidly growing and the Toronto CMA exhibits the highest growth rate as well as contains the largest number of this demographic compared to all the other CMAs within Ontario. The 2001 and 2006 census periods are examined to see whether the change in senior population had any effect on their accessibilities to family physicians and geriatric specialists. The results derived from this research showed that the suburban area, especially the census tracts in the north, north west and north east of the suburbs have low senior accessibility to family physicians and geriatricians when compared to the City of Toronto. In order to improve the spatial accessibility of the senior population to geriatric specialists in underserviced areas, the Location Allocation model using the maximum cover method is used to propose new geriatric office locations within the 905 area. This paper contributes to the existing literature on healthcare geography as well as demonstrates that geographical accessibility merits serious attention in policy deliberations regarding health care delivery to the growing elderly population.