Matthew Yu Wang, BSc (Hons) MPhil (Cantab)

Matthew's research area is the geography of health and healthcare. His work focuses on applying GIS and remote sensing techniques to explore the spatial distributions of populations at risk and health problems; to analyze associations of health outcomes and geographical factors; and to investigate geographical access to health care provision.

Biography

Qualifications

PhD Candidate in Human Geography, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge (2008 - present)
MPhil in Geographical Information Systems and Remote Sensing, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge (2007-2008)
BSc (First Class Honours) in Environmental Science, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Imperial College London (2004- 2007)

Awards and scholarships

Philip Lake Fund and William Lewis Fund, Department of Geography, February 2010
Mary Euphrasia Mosley, Sir Bartle Frere & Worts Travel Fund, The Old Schools, University of Cambridge, May 2009
Doctoral Research Fund, Jesus College, University of Cambridge, January 2009
ORS Equivalent Bursary, Cambridge Overseas Trust, University of Cambridge, June 2008
Greenleaf Foundation Scholarship, Columbia University, USA, October 2007

Research

Over the past decade, 'inaccessible and expensive medical services' has become one of the most concerning social issues in China and the government has started to develop the community health service (CHS) system, which aims to provide primary health care services for all urban populations. A major issue raised from China's current community health care system is the inequality of access to community health care services. Matthew's PhD research focuses on access to community health care in China from a geographical perspective. The city of Jinan, one of the cities which first launched CHS in China in the late 1990s, has been selected as the study area.

Geographical studies of access to health care often involve assessing how inequality of access may affect the utilization of health services; investigating the impact of differential access to services on population health, and seeking improvements to ensure the better access to health care is provided effectively. Matthew's research will address the issue of access to community health services in Jinan city from three perspectives: the government's perspective, patients' perspective, and health professionals' perspective, which corresponds to three measures of access to health care: service availability, utilization and perception of services, and health outcomes. Hypertension is selected as a particular example to explore the impact of spatial access to health care on health outcomes.

Specifically, this research project will consist of four parts: (1) to measure and map the potential accessibility (service availability) of CHS in Jinan at the sub-district level; (2) to investigate the revealed accessibility (utilization and perception) of CHS and related factors by conducting a questionnaire survey; (3) to undertake fieldwork on the prevalence of hypertension in communities and to explore the association between its prevalence and access to health services; (4) to produce an integrated location-allocation model with suggestions for local health sectors as to how they might optimize community health care resources and improve the quality, equity and efficiency of health care delivery at the community level.

Publications

Wang, Y., Haining, R. and Zhu, J. (2009) GIS-based spatial-temporal analysis of human birth defects in China. URISA GIS in Public Health Conference Proceedings (forthcoming). Urban and Regional Information Systems Association, USA.

Teaching

Demonstrator for Part IA, Geographical Skills and Methods: Statistical Methods; Spatial Data Analysis
Demonstrator for Part IB, Geographical Skills and Methods: Water Quality Analysis Project
Demonstrator for Part IB, Geography and Public Policy

External activities

PhD student representative of Department Graduate-Staff Consultative Committee
Postgraduate fellow of the Royal Geographical Society
Fellow of the Cambridge Philosophical Society
Member of the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association