SocIo-economIc develoPment of coaStal health reSort communeS In Poland

The health resort communes have a significant impact on the functioning of the local government. On the one hand, they enhance the development of tourism, but on the other hand, they inhibit the development of other branches of economy. The aim of the study is to compare and point out the developmental trends in the coastal health resort communes, which may provide conclusions on how their health and spa functions affect their development. The subject of the research is the socio-economic situation of six communes including four located on the coast in the West Pomerania Province and two located on the coast in the Pomerania Province. To evaluate the socio-economic situation, the synthetic indicator method was applied involving pointer variables available in Polish public statistics. The measurements were taken in three categories: human and social capital, material capital as well as financial and economic capital. Depending on the data availability, the time period of some indicators was adjusted to their occurrence. The main time period under research are the years 2000–2020.

The aim of the study is to compare and point out the developmental trends in the coastal health resort communes, which may provide conclusions on how their health and spa functions affect their development. The subject of the research is the socioeconomic situation of six communes including four located on the coast in the West Pomerania Province and two located on the coast in the Pomerania Province.
From the legal point of view, a health resort is an area where health resort treatment is provided and which has been designated to take advantage of and protect the natural resources with healing properties (Gaworecki, 2003). Obtaining the status of a health resort is a condition necessary to be allowed to function as a statutory health resort (Mika, Ptaszycka-Jackowska, 2007). The issue of health resorts, their functions and rendered services are specified by the following normative acts (Królak, 2021): • the Act of 28 July, 2005 on healing treatments and health resorts as well as health resort protection areas and communes (Ustawa..., 2005). • the Polish Standard PN-2001/Z-11000 Health Resorts. Terminology, classification and general requirements (Polska..., 2001). According to the regulations of the Act of 28 July, 2005(Ustawa..., 2005, a statutory health resort is an area, which has been granted the status of the health resort in the manner specified in the Act (Ustawa..., 2005, art. 2, item 2). Such a status may be granted to an area, provided it meets all the following requirements (Ustawa..., 2005, art. 34, item 1): 1. It has natural healing resources of confirmed healing properties under the terms of the Act; 2. It has climate with confirmed medicinal properties under the terms of the Act; 3. It has health resort enterprises and spa treatment facilities prepared to implement curative services; 4. It fulfills the environment protection requirements specified in the regulations; 5. It has the technical infrastructure for water and sewage, energy, mass transport and waste management. The study refers to those communes which were granted the status of health resorts and are located on the Baltic Sea coast. According to the classification of Statistics Poland (GUS, 2011), statutory coastal resorts are those located within 3 km from the sea shore. There are statutory health resorts in the Pomerania Province (2) and the West Pomerania Province (4). These are: Sopot, Ustka, Dąbki, Kołobrzeg, Kamień Pomorski and Świnoujście (Tab. 1, Fig. 1).
Tab. 1. List of coastal health resort communes including the health resort area in Poland in 2020.
name of the health resort commune area of the health resort

data and methods
The analysis of the socio-economic situation of the coastal communes holding the status of health resorts in Poland was made on the basis of the synthetic indicator developed with the data available in the public statistics of the Statistics Poland -Local Data Bank (Local..., 2022). The analysis of most of the indicators was carried out in the time period of 2000-2020. Depending on the data availability, the time period of some indicators was adjusted to their occurrence (e.g. the European Union funds for programs and projects per capita where data are available since 2010). Also, certain inaccuracy of the Polish statistics must be emphasized especially those concerning the population, which results from the fact that part of the foreign and internal migration had not been registered (Michalski, 2014;Sakson, 2002;Śleszyński, 2005;Wiśniewski et al., 2020). Moreover, T. Michalski and W. Szymańska (2017) distinguished 5 groups of problems concerning the analysis of legacy statistical data, i.e. statistical data timing (delay or longer than one year period of collecting data), low specificity or high specificity of the process, problems with unequivocal definitions of indicators (fluctuations in the period of defining, classifying and interpreting the data), problems with delimitation of units (changes to the territorial divisions, different units collecting data for different institutions) and the human factor. Despite all the difficulties, the analysis made on the basis of public data reflects the changes that have taken place over the years. Thanks to the applied method, the differences in the sizes of health resorts measured by the number of their residents and their economic potential were basically eliminated by using relative measures. The measurements were taken in three categories: 1. Human and social capital, which constitutes a crucial factor enhancing local development; 2. Material capital, which describes the elements of infrastructure related to the living conditions and life quality of the inhabitants dependent on the economic situation; 3. Financial and economic capital related to the financial and economic situation of the health resort communes and including indicators describing the level of changes in the development of tourism and health resort activity. 23 indicators were applied in total, 10 of which described the human and social capital, 4 indicators described the material capital and 9 indicators described the financial and economic capital (Tab. 2).
The synthetic indicator procedure applied in the study required standardization of diagnostic criteria due to the fact that the data in a multidimensional matrix were in various measurement units. Therefore, the diagnostic criteria were transformed into such a form where the range of their variability had a fixed length of 1 with the method of unitarization according to the following formula (Młodak, 2006): for stimulants ; for destimulants ; where: Z ij -standardized value of criterion x j , min x ij -minimum value of criterion x j , max x ij -maximum value of criterion x j .
The value of the synthetic indicator is the arithmetic mean for such standardized criteria of each place. Source: own study based on Tab. 1. • indicator of population aging -the number of inhabitants aged 65 and older per 100 inhabitants up to 14 years of age -the dynamics of changes in relations to the previous year (%).

Social potential:
• educational level of council members -percentage of council members holding an academic degree; • share of social foundations, associations and organizations in the total number of national economic entities (%).
labor market: • the number of employed people per 1000 inhabitants -average level; • registered unemployment rate -the number of unemployed people per 1000 working-age population -average level; • the number of economic entities per 1000 working-age population -average level; • natural persons conducting economic activity per 1000 inhabitants -average level.

material capital
Social infrastructure: • number of apartments per 1000 inhabitants -the dynamics of the changes compared to the previous year (%); • usable floor area per capita -average level.
technical infrastructure • expenditure on municipal economy and environmental protection per capita -average level; • share of people using the sewage network (%) -average level.

financial and economic capital
Public finances: • the commune income per capita -the dynamics of increase/decrease compared to the previous year (%); • share of the commune's own income in the budget -average level; • share of the investment spending in total spending -average level; • the European Union funds per capita to finance programs and projects -average level.

tourism:
• total tourist accommodation (as in VII) per 1000 inhabitants -average level; • expenditure per capita in department 630 -Tourism-average level.

health resorts:
• accommodation (as in VII) in health and spa establishments per 1000 inhabitants -average level; • expenditure per capita in department 851 -Health protection -average level; • share of newly registered entities in medical sector in the total number of economic entities -average level.
Source: own study. with the use of natural resources in those places (Tab. 4).
The coastal health resorts operate on the basis of peloids and brine water. Only Dąbki does not have any medicinal waters. In the case of coastal communes, it is particularly important to take advantage of the marine climate which is usually strongly stimulating, rich in iodine but often attenuated by forest areas (Tab. 4).
As far as health resort activity is concerned (in accordance with Ustawa..., 2005, Art.13 item 1), health resorts usually base their activities on 6-7 groups of diseases (Tab. 5). Kołobrzeg and Świnoujście are the only health resorts that offer a wider range of services (11 groups of diseases). All the described health resort communes offer treatment for orthopedic and traumatic diseases, neurological system diseases (excluding Dąbki health resort), rheumatic diseases, cardiovascular diseases and high blood pressure, diseases of the upper and lower respiratory tract (excluding Sopot which only offers treatment for lower respiratory tract diseases). Some health resorts specialize in treating other diseases for instance, Dąbki, Kołobrzeg, Świnoujście and Ustka health resorts specialize in endocrine diseases; Kołobrzeg, Sopot and Świnoujście specialize in osteoporosis; Kołobrzeg and Świnoujście specialize in obesity and skin diseases; Kołobrzeg also specializes in treating women's diseases.
Apart from differences in terms of the area and profile, the communes under analysis are not homogeneous in terms of the population: Sopot, Kołobrzeg and Świnoujście are medium-size towns, Ustka and Kamień Pomorski are small towns, while Dąbki is a place located in a rural commune (Tab. 6). Those facts make the social and economic Tab. 5. Health resort activity of coastal health resorts in Poland in 2020.

Commune
Health resort activity Dąbki Darłowo rural commune Orthopedic and traumatic diseases, rheumatic diseases, cardiovascular diseases and high blood pressure, diseases of the upper respiratory tract, diseases of the lower respiratory tract, endocrine diseases.

Kamień Pomorski Kamień Pomorski urban-rural commune
Orthopedic and traumatic diseases, rheumatic diseases, cardiovascular diseases and high blood pressure (including rehabilitation), diseases of the lower respiratory tract, neurological system diseases and children's diseases: cardiovascular diseases, diseases of the upper and lower respiratory tract.

Kołobrzeg
Kołobrzeg urban commune Orthopedic and traumatic diseases, neurological system diseases, rheumatic diseases, cardiovascular diseases and high blood pressure, diseases of the upper respiratory tract, diseases of the lower respiratory tract, diabetes, obesity, endocrine diseases, osteoporosis, skin diseases.

Sopot Sopot town with county rights
Orthopedic and traumatic diseases, neurological system diseases, rheumatic diseases, cardiovascular diseases and high blood pressure, diseases of the lower respiratory tract, osteoporosis.

Świnoujście
Świnoujście town with county rights Orthopedic and traumatic diseases, neurological system diseases, rheumatic diseases, cardiovascular diseases and high blood pressure, diseases of the upper respiratory tract, diseases of the lower respiratory tract, obesity, endocrine diseases, osteoporosis, skin diseases, women's diseases.

Ustka
Ustka urban commune Orthopedic and traumatic diseases, neurological system diseases, rheumatic diseases, cardiovascular diseases and high blood pressure, diseases of the lower respiratory tract, endocrine diseases.
Source: own study based on health resort statutes.

human capital in coastal health resort communes in Poland
The human capital was defined on the basis of the demographic and social potential of the communities under study. Each of them constitutes a significant factor of developmental opportunities understood in social, economic and cultural categories. The demographic potential 1 of the health resort communes under study undoubtedly shows stable population dynamics; however, it must be emphasized that there is a visible depopulation trend especially in the second sub-period i.e., the years 2010-2020. In the first decade, Sopot and Świnoujście experienced a population decline. The situation significantly worsened in the majority of the coastal health resorts in the second decade under study, and apart from Darłowo all the other resorts recorded a population decrease. The final balance for the years 2000-2020 shows a stagnating population situation of the coastal health resorts and depopulation as the predominant trend (Tab. 7).
The rate of population aging points to the aging of the population in all the resorts under study. The lowest average dynamics of that rate characterized Sopot, which has the oldest age structure compared to the others. The lowest average dynamics of aging was also recorded in Darłowo commune, which is the only one to represent rural areas. On average, the other health resort communes have shown an increase in the share of the oldest population 1 From 1999 to 2009, (according to the administrative division of 31 XII), the balance of population size and structure was calculated on the basis of results of the National Census (NSP)-2002. Since 2010, the basis for calculating the balance of the population size and structure have been the results of NSP-2011. As there is no balance of population registered for permanent residence any more, the methodology of calculating all demographic ratios has changed and individual demographic and migration facts were related to the population (formerly referred to as "current status -resident"). The balance sheet data for permanent and actual population and the rates for 2010 based on the data of NSP 2002 have a historical value only. The balance sheet data of the population for 2010 was prepared according to the administrative division valid on 1 I 2011. However, due to the specificity of the Local Data Bank, they were calculated according to the administrative division of the country valid on 1 I 2010 (excluding changes that do not affect the indicators and names of the administrative units of the country's territorial division), which results in the difference between the data published in the GUS studies. compared to children (aged 0-14) by about 6% annually in the last 20 years.
A similar situation occurs with regard to the average natural birth rate. It is negative and shows a population decrease, which is the highest in Sopot. The average birth rate is positive only in Darłowo in the years under study.
Equally negative trends are visible in the average migration balance. Over the years, the average rate was positive only in Darłowo and Świnoujście. However, Ustka and Sopot recorded the biggest population losses.
In general, the indicator of demographic potential was the most favorable in Darłowo commune, and it was the lowest in Ustka and Sopot (Fig. 2). All the more favorable indicators under analysis exerted an influence on the favorable demographic potential compared to the other coastal health resort communes: relatively high population dynamics, low population aging dynamics, positive average birth rate and migration balance. Quite the opposite situation occurred in Sopot where the only favorable indicator was the population aging rate, However, it should not be overestimated due to exceptionally old age structure of the population of that town.
Social potential was related to the measurement of shaping social awareness and the general level of social development of the local communities which influence local development (Tab. 8, Fig. 3).
In this respect, the variables point to a clear dominance of Sopot as a town with a community that is well-shaped, aware and striving to achieve the specified objectives. Both the share of people holding an academic degree and prepared to make decisions about the town and a larger share of non-profit organizations than in the other resorts point to an undoubtedly high level of social capital in this town.
Darłowo commune has the lowest average share of its council members holding an academic degree. However, it also reports a kind of resilience of local communities as it takes the second place in terms of NGO's share in the total number of economic entities.
In all the coastal health resort communes, the civic society awareness has been on the increase as the indicators are clearly more favorable in the years 2010-2020 than in the previous years. In this respect, Ustka is an exception as there has been a decrease in the average share of people holding an academic degree among the town's council members.
Another area defining the human and social capital is the labor market. It defines social engagement in the economic development and a conscious shaping of material capital through own entrepreneurship (Tab. 9, Fig. 4). Sopot deserves attention in this respect as it has a well-developed labor market, low average unemployment rate, the best developed sphere of economic activity and entrepreneurship on average. However, Kołobrzeg showed the highest average number of natural persons running their own economic activity per 1000 inhabitants. Source: own study. Source: own study.
the value of the partial synthetic indicators does not exceed 40%. In general, Sopot has the biggest potential in terms of human and social capital (Fig. 5). Despite unfavorable demographic trends, it is a health resort with a very high social potential and developmental opportunities. Kołobrzeg and Świnoujście are also very well developing resorts. Although this indicator in all the three towns was similar in the years 2000-2010, Sopot clearly gained an advantage over the others in the next decade.

material capital of the coastal health resort communes in Poland
Material capital refers to the investment which enables satisfying social needs and influences the opportunities of economic development including economic activity and entrepreneurship. The study describes it on the basis of social and technical infrastructure.
The social infrastructure was defined only on the basis of the housing market which seems convenient and willing to improve the housing conditions for living in a health resort with developmental potential (Tab. 10, Fig. 6).
In this respect, Kołobrzeg is an outstanding town. It has the highest dynamics of its housing resources (Świnoujście is the next) which makes it a very friendly place to live despite giving way to Sopot in terms of the comfort (i.e. average usable floor area of apartments per capita).
Both indicators point to the worst situation in Kamień Pomorski, where there has been a visible increase in the housing resources and the average  usable floor area of apartments over the years. However, it is the slowest increase compared to the other health resorts. The potential resulting from the technical infrastructure was defined on the basis of average spending on the municipal economy and environmental protection per capita and the average level of the sewage network use.
In all the communes, both indicators have been rising though the increase is not the same. While the average spending on the municipal economy and environmental protection per capita has increased Source: own study. Source: own study. more than threefold in Ustka, Kołobrzeg and Darłowo, more than twofold in Świnoujście, twofold in Sopot, it has only increased by 40% in Kamień Pomorski. Nevertheless, it must be emphasized that the level of spending is significantly higher in Sopot and Darłowo commune than elsewhere (Tab. 11). As far as the sewage network is concerned, it seems that Sopot, Ustka and Kołobrzeg health resorts have nearly satisfied all the needs as almost all their residents use their technical infrastructure.
Darłowo and Kamień Pomorski have not reached a satisfying level due to the communes' rural or urban-rural character.
Sopot has a good level of investment in its technical structure judging from the indicators under analysis (Fig. 7). However, it is not good enough in Darłowo and Kamień Pomorski although spending per capita on the municipal economy and environmental protection is more than average in Darłowo.  Source: own study.
Finally, the material capital indicator is the highest in Sopot, although it increased in Kołobrzeg in the second decade (Fig. 8). Kamień Pomorski has the lowest material capital indicator which results from the worst social and technical infrastructure compared to the other health resorts. Source: own study.

financial and economic capital in the coastal health resort communes in Poland
The financial capital including the communes' own income is a crucial element determining local development and the result of that development at the same time. Similarly, investment spending and the value of the EU funds prove the activity of the communes' authorities and their engagement in the local development (Tab. 12, Fig. 9). The income dynamics of the coastal health resort communes in Poland declined in Sopot, Kamień Pomorski and Kołobrzeg. Generally, the income itself increased; however, the average increase in the income slightly declined in the second decade. The average income increase remained at a similar lever in Ustka and Darłowo communes and significantly increased in Świnoujście.
Sopot had the highest average share of its own income in the budget in the period under study. This indicator improved in Sopot, Darłowo and Świnoujście in the years 2010-2020. Yet, the average share of their own income in the budget decreased in Ustka and Kołobrzeg in the same period. In general, Kamień Pomorski had the lowest share of their own income in the budget in the period under study.
As far as the investment spending is concerned, only Świnoujście reported an increase in investment spending in the years 2010-2020 compared to the previous decade. All the other health resorts were characterized by stagnation (Ustka, Darłowo commune) or even decrease (Sopot, Kamień Pomorski, Kołobrzeg) in average investment spending.
As far as the evaluation of the EU funds is concerned, the available data did not allow conducting an evaluation for the years 2000-2010. However, they remain a very crucial element of the commune's budget and oftentimes condition the investment development which is not possible from the communes' own financial resources.
In general, as far as the public finances are concerned, i.e., income, investment spending, obtaining EU funds, all the communes under study are at a similar level. However, Ustka excels in this respect as it obtained significant EU funds in the years 2012-2015 thus securing many investment opportunities for itself (Fig. 9). Only Kamień Pomorski has the lowest financial capital and showed the lowest level of nearly all the indicators on average compared to the other health resorts.
Tourism is undoubtedly a very important area of the communes' economy. When it is described as an average phenomenon calculated per capita, it points out to Darłowo which has a clear tourism profile, and tourism economy has an important share in the labor market and affects the developmental trends of that commune. Average spending on tourism was the highest in Sopot and Darłowo (Tab. 13, Fig. 10). Source: own study. Source: own study. The social and economic development of health resort communes is mostly stimulated by their health and spa activity. However, having the status of a health resort has both advantages and disadvantages in terms of economic policy. Health and spa activity was assessed on the basis of the average number of beds in health and spa enterprises, spending in the department 851, i.e., Health protection and the level of registering new entities of the medical sector (Tab. 14).
The health and spa activity has improved in the communes under study in the last twenty years. Excluding Świnoujście, all the other communes reported an increase in the number of accommodation in health resort enterprises. Apart from Darłowo commune, average spending per capita in the area of health protection has increased. Unfortunately,  Source: own study. the number of newly set up enterprises in the medical sector has decreased in all the health resort communes apart from Kołobrzeg. If a commune reached the saturation level in terms of the number of enterprises in the medical sector, the indicator should not be very relevant.
In general, the health and spa activity is best developed in Kołobrzeg, where both accommodation, new medical sector entities and even expenditure on health protection are at a high level on average (Fig. 11). Kołobrzeg excels among the other communes under study in this respect. It reached such a high level as early as in 2000-2010 and improved it significantly in the next decade.
In general, the financial and economic indicator is similar in the health resorts under study. Kamień Pomorski is in a slightly worse situation. It must also be emphasized that Sopot excelled in this respect in the first decade; however, the level of its capital has flattened since 2010 and is nearly the same as for dominating Kołobrzeg (Fig. 12).

changes in the social and economic development in the coastal health resort communes in Poland in the years 2000-2020
When comparing the general social and economic situation in the coastal health resort communes in Poland in the years 2000-2020, Sopot takes the first place, while Kołobrzeg takes the second place at the beginning of the period under study. In all the types of capital, both towns took the first and the second place, respectively (Fig. 13).
Towards the end of the period under study, the role of Kołobrzeg is increasing while Sopot loses its strong position. The most favorable changes in terms of the financial and economic capital take place in Kołobrzeg, which significantly exceeded Sopot in the years 2010-2020. In addition, the role of that capital becomes more important in Ustka, Świnoujście and Darłowo, which means that Sopot lost significantly compared to the other communes.
The changes to the social and economic development in the coastal health resort communes were the most favorable in Kołobrzeg, where all types of capital increased (Tab. 15). Świnoujście reported a significant rise due to the improvements in the human capital as well as in the financial and economic capital. Unfortunately, it is weakened by a decrease in the value of the material capital indicator.
Two health resorts reported a decrease in the value of the synthetic indicator. In Sopot, it was due to a significant loss of importance of the financial and economic capital, while in Kamień Pomorski it was due to a significant decline in the human capital and in the financial and economic capital, which were the poorest compared to the other communes.
All the changes that took place in the years 2000-2010 and 2010-2020 clearly point to an increasing role of Kołobrzeg and Świnoujście and a decreasing role of Sopot. Source: own study.

Summary
The development of the coastal health resort communes is not homogeneous. The best operating ones are the already developed settlements and villages and the bigger towns in terms of resident numbers, like Sopot and Kołobrzeg, which suggests that a diversification of economic functions (serving to strengthen the tourism functions) may be beneficial also for the development of the health resort function. Despite significant human capital, small health resorts do not have as large economic potential as the bigger ones, which impacts their poorer economic condition and a slower growth rate. The greatest differences are visible in terms of the material capital, especially the residents' quality of life and housing resources as well as investment in technical infrastructure.
The development of health resorts is a chance for the residents to improve the quality of their lives, find employment and raise their qualifications. Implementation of training and educational activities is an exceptionally important issue to facilitate the development of health resort functions and create atmosphere facilitating local entrepreneurship. Such activities should be addressed to people already employed in the health resorts but also to their future employees. Therefore, introducing new fields of study connected with tourism and hospitality at all levels of education may significantly contribute to creating job careers in health resorts. Health resort tourism may play an important role by stimulating  social and economic development in marginalized areas which are characterized by social exclusion. However, it is necessary to find appropriate staff rendering services to tourists, especially health resort tourists (peripheral regions usually do not have such human resources). The experience of other areas of sanatoriums and health resorts confirms that the development of therapeutic services and other auxiliary services may facilitate an economic and social success of certain territorial units (Bański, Więckowski, 2014). At the same time, it is crucial to generate new jobs in the same health resorts and companies that cooperate with them. At the end of the last few years, global events, such as the Covid-19 pandemic or the war crisis between Russia and Ukraine, have a significant impact on the economy, even the local economy. In this situation, it is difficult to predict how local economies, which are very dependent on state policy, especially in the field of financial regulations, will react.