Journal of Arid Regions Geographic Studies

Journal of Arid Regions Geographic Studies

Analysis of Spatial differences of Quality of Life in Hamedan City

Authors
Fatemeh Saednia
Seyyed Hadi Hosseini
Hossein Ghodrati
Abstract
Introduction
The promotion of quality of life over the past several centuries remains an implicit as well as explicit public policy goal. This issue plays an increasing role in social science research, in which it is stated that economic growth and development do not necessarily lead to improvements in the living conditions of the country's inhabitants.Therefore, research and development focus their attention on this concept so that focusing on efforts to study the determinative and constructive elements of quality of life and the provision of mechanisms that can help to improve it. (Lever 2000). The quality of life has been the focus of numerous studies but there is still no acceptable global consensus about it. ‘The quality of life indirectly implies a degree of superiority in some aspects, but the concept of quality of life may have different meanings for people of different societies. For some, the meaning of quality of life may be due to how happy they are, and for others, it may look at the proper economic situation, education, and health and safety. A large number of researchers agree that the concept of quality of life is wider than to be described. And it's impossible to provide a globally defined definition of quality of life. According to the World Health Organization, quality of life can be defined as the perceptions of individuals about their goals, their determinants, their standards and their concerns. Diener et al (1999) defined quality of life as a multidimensional construct, which includes a level of satisfaction with personal needs. The quality of life is an interdisciplinary and perhaps spontaneous subject matter that has been dramatically addressed by policymakers and urban planners in recent decades. Literature related to the quality of life in Iran is relatively new and has been focused on academic studies during the last decade. The iissue of quality of life due to its close relationship with the notion of sustainable development is an inevitable necessity that all managers and policy-makers should have a special attention in plans and programs.
The objectives of present study are 1) to explore situation of overall quality of life in Hamedan city and 2) To compare spatial differences of quality of life in Neighborhoods of Hamedan city. The study area is Hamedan, the capital of Hamedan province.
Materials and Methods
To achievement of data, we use of documentary and surveys method and for analyzing of data analyzes, SPSS software and descriptive and inferential statistics were used. The main research tool is World Health Organization questionnaire on the quality of life. The questionnaire was developed in 1989 in cooperation with 15 international centers and the questions involves four main domains of life, including (a) physical health domain, (b) mental health domain, (c) social health domain and (d) environmental health domain.
The statistical population of the study consisted of all citizens over 20 years of age in Hamedan who were 395651 at the time of the research. A sample of 510 samples was selected using simple random sampling among 17 neighborhoods of the city. The reliability coefficient of the research tool was calculated to be 0.844 based on Cronbach's alpha.
 
 
Discussion and Results
The results of the study indicated that Scores of indicators of quality of life for Hamedan is equal to 3.13.
Analysis of the studied neighborhoods indicates that the Motekhasesan neighborhood with a score of 4/1 had the most favorable living conditions and in contrast to the neighborhoods of Valiasr, Sadeghieh, Hasanabad, Hesar Piaskaran and Majid Abad, neighborhoods with scores lower than 3 have undesirable quality of life. It also explains that the quality of life of neighborhoods located in informal settlements, in comparison with the neighborhoods located in the city center, or suburban planned townships and neighborhoods where the upper classes of the community are located, are in more unfavorable conditions. Among the four main dimensions of quality of life that have been studied in this study, the areas of social health and mental health have been more inappropriate in comparison with social and environmental health.
Further findings suggest a significant correlation between spatial justice and quality of life in a way that improves their quality of life by improving spatial justice and providing citizens with better access to services. Based on the results of the research, the following suggestions have been made to improve the quality of life of the citizens of Hamadan:
- Attention to the inequalities and differences in the quality of life of citizens of Hamedan city in urban planning and policy.
- Attention to the unfavorable conditions of two areas of mental health and social health in Hamadan city and efforts to improve their situation
- Attention to inequalities in citizens' access to urban amenities and establishment of spatial justice in the city of Hamedan.
Keywords
Quality of Life
Spatial differences
WHO Questionnaire
Hamedan
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  • Receive Date 23 November 2022
  • Publish Date 23 November 2022