Allocating socioeconomic census data to primary care areas: an improvement in small-area analyses.

Abstract

Objective: Provide a method for reusing National Institute of Statistics (INE) socioeconomic data and reconstructing the Spanish National Health System primary care areas (PCA) from INE census tracts.

Method: The reconstruction of PCA boundaries entailed aligning, assigning, and integrating census tracts within the limits of the PCA using 2022 INE and 2018 Atlas VPM digital maps.

Results: 36,282 census tracts were assigned to 2,405 PCA. The alignment of digital maps showed a programmatic assignment of 99.7% of the census tracts within PCA; just ten census tracts must be manually assigned. The net average income per capita distribution from INE was consistent along the newly reconstructed PCA.

Conclusions: We have proposed a reliable solution to integrate socioeconomic data from INE census statistics into PCA, enhancing data researchers' capacities in joint analyses of socioeconomic determinants and healthcare.