# A Health Support Model for Suburban Hills Citizens
## 1 Introduction  
In Taiwan, the National Health Insurance Program has been implemented for more than 20 years. Under this program, the health insurance coverage rate has reached approximately 99% of the population [1]. However, the medical services or infrastructures provided in some village areas or suburban hills still remain insufficient. The major health issues in rural areas are mainly associated with the problems of chronic shortages of doctors, dentists, pharmacists, and a widening gap in life expectancy. In this study, when compared with those ordinary people residing in the urban areas, their counterpart suburban hill citizens had been afflicted with these aforesal problems [2]. This article describes the situation in a suburban hill area in Taiwan, and it is concerned with the comprehensive medical care for local villagers and local residents. That is because they require regular assistance from medical specialists in their homes in order for them to maintain their health and manage their health problems. This does not include the hospital-at-home care provided by a professional on a hospital team. The meanings, the material conditions, and the social relations of both the domestic life and the healthcare work in relation to those care services ranging from hospital medical care to home health care are changing [3]. Little is known about the total care received by those residents living in suburban hills. This is not only including what happens to them when they are at home but also the care they receive at home. What is more, there is a lack of knowledge about what factors would mainly influence the care given in these areas. Scholars in this field cannot agree on a universally acceptable definition of the construct of how to access healthcare [4]. This is attributed from an insufficient understanding of the roles played by different facilitators and the barriers between urban and the rural specialty care [5]. The elderly, women, children, racially and socioeconomically disadvantaged groups, and individuals with chronic health conditions have faced special challenges in their disproportionate access to specialty care and poorer health outcomes despite the impact of geographic residency status, especially in medically underserved urban and rural areas [6]. Although there are many definitions of urban and rural geographic areas, the construct of the suburban hills has been regarded as an important concept after the Satoyama Initiative was firstly introduced in the year 2015 [7]. This is a global initiative based on the concept of Satoyama, referred to as a traditional rural landscape in Japan. The initiative promotes the concept as such and helps integrate conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity in production landscapes, outside of the protected areas. The initiative has been supported and implemented by an international partnership comprising over 100 governments, civil society organizations, and indigenous peoples [7]. Regardless of the vast differences between the urban and rural landscapes, several characteristics are shared among vulnerable populations. One of the important concepts is \"approachability\". Healthcare approachability represents the capacity of a health system designated to identify and provide services in need, such as transparency, information, and screening [8]. Another important concept associated with suburban hill medical services is \"availability and accommodation\". This concept relates to the timely attainment, geographic locations, hours of operation, and capacity of services offered. Traveling for care is also deemed as a key issue because traveling to larger cities to receive care is a burdensome task for rural residences [7; 8]. Accordingly, the study aimed to exam practices and concerns related to medical issues in a suburban hill area. Given the exploratory nature of this study and its natural limitation in the area, a mixed-method approach combined with both qualitative and quantitative thinking was employed to establish the model proposed in this research.