Access to primary health care relative to need for Indigenous Australians

This paper describes the development, and presents the results, of an area-based index that measures access to General Practitioners relative to the need for primary health care for both the Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations of Australia. The Access Relative to Need index is able to explain more of the variation in health outcomes than measures of access to GPs alone. Indigenous people experience a general pattern of worsening access to GPs relative to need with increasing remoteness. A less dramatic decrease by remoteness is noted in the non-Indigenous population.