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Background/purpose Broad medical insurance coverage alone does not ensure that a multilevel medical security system works effectively. In a megacity, the key issue is whether residents can reach suitable care, keep choices across provider tiers, and use high-quality services within daily time–space constraints. Proximity-based measures often miss this problem because they do not capture cross-district healthcare-seeking, preferences for higher-level hospitals, or the concentration of quality resources in limited urban locations. Using Shanghai as a case, this study used Mobile signaling big data to identify spatial inequalities in healthcare access and to inform service-side improvement. Methods This study used anonymized mobile signaling records from March 2019 to reconstruct a directed, weighted healthcare-seeking flow network linking demand units with 352 hospitals in Shanghai. This study then constructed the Multidimensional Healthcare Access Capability Index (MHACI) with entropy-weighted TOPSIS. The index integrated spatial accessibility, healthcare-seeking choice diversity, and connectivity to high-quality healthcare resources. Multiscale geographically weighted regression (MGWR) was used to estimate associations of MHACI with demographic structure, economic capacity, transport infrastructure, population density, and local healthcare capacity across space. Results Healthcare-seeking flows in Shanghai were concentrated toward the urban core, with cross-district movement. MHACI showed a clear center-periphery gradient. Aging share was positively related to MHACI mainly in central and adjacent areas, whereas child share was linked to lower MHACI in core districts. Per capita GDP and local healthcare capacity had positive but localized effects. Population density shifted from a crowding burden in central areas to an agglomeration advantage in peripheral areas, while transport infrastructure mainly acted as a background condition. Conclusion Unequal healthcare access in Shanghai reflects a mismatch between fixed healthcare provision and healthcare-seeking flows across urban space. Improving a multilevel medical security system requires not only formal coverage, but also stronger primary care, better connectivity across provider tiers, and place-specific governance in core, peri-urban, and outer suburban areas.
Guo et al. (Tue,) studied this question.