Achieving universal health care coverage—a key target of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal number 3—requires accessibility to health care services for all. Currently, in sub-Saharan Africa, at least one-sixth of the population lives more than 2 h away from a public hospital, and one in eight people is no less than 1 h away from the nearest health center. We combine high-resolution data on the location of different typologies of public health care facilities [J. Maina et al., Sci. Data 6, 134 (2019)] with population distribution maps and terrain-specific accessibility algorithms to develop a multiobjective geographic information system framework for assessing the optimal allocation of new health care facilities and assessing hospitals expansion requirements. The proposed methodology ensures universal accessibility to public health care services within prespecified travel times while guaranteeing sufficient available hospital beds. Our analysis suggests that to meet commonly accepted universal health care accessibility targets, sub-Saharan African countries will need to build ∼6,200 new facilities by 2030. We also estimate that about 2.5 million new hospital beds need to be allocated between new facilities and ∼1,100 existing structures that require expansion or densification. Optimized location, type, and capacity of each facility can be explored in an interactive dashboard. Our methodology and the results of our analysis can inform local policy makers in their assessment and prioritization of health care infrastructure. This is particularly relevant to tackle health care accessibility inequality, which is not only prominent within and between countries of sub-Saharan Africa but also, relative to the level of service provided by health care facilities.

实现全民医疗保健覆盖（联合国可持续发展目标 3 的一个关键目标）需要让所有人都能获得医疗保健服务。目前，在撒哈拉以南非洲地区，至少六分之一的人口居住地距离公立医院超过2小时，八分之一的人距离最近的医疗中心不低于1小时。我们结合了不同类型的公共卫生保健设施位置的高分辨率数据 [J. Maina 等人，科学。Data 6, 134 (2019)]利用人口分布图和特定地形的可达性算法来开发多目标地理信息系统框架，用于评估新医疗设施的优化分配和评估医院扩建需求。拟议的方法确保在预定的旅行时间内普遍获得公共医疗保健服务，同时保证有足够的可用医院床位。我们的分析表明，为了实现普遍接受的全民医疗保健可及性目标，撒哈拉以南非洲国家到 2030 年将需要建造约 6,200 个新设施。我们还估计，需要在新设施和约 1,100 个设施之间分配约 250 万个新病床。需要扩展或致密化的现有结构。可以在交互式仪表板中探索每个设施的优化位置、类型和容量。我们的方法和分析结果可以为当地决策者评估医疗保健基础设施并确定其优先顺序提供信息。这对于解决医疗保健可及性不平等问题尤其重要，这种不平等不仅在撒哈拉以南非洲国家内部和国家之间很突出，而且相对于医疗保健设施提供的服务水平也很突出。