Defining neighborhood boundaries for urban health research in developing countries: a case study of Accra, Ghana

Ryan Engstrom, Caetlin Ofiesh, David Rain, Henry Jewell and John Weeks

Journal of Maps, 2013, vol. 9, issue 1, 36-42

Abstract: The neighborhood has been used as a sampling unit for exploring variations in health outcomes. In a variety of studies census tracts or ZIP codes have been used as proxies for neighborhoods because the boundaries are pre-defined units for which other data are readily available. However these spatial units can be arbitrary and do not account for social-cultural behaviors and identities that are significant to residents. In this study for the city of Accra, Ghana, our goal was to create a neighborhood map that represented the boundaries generally agreed upon by the residents of the city using the smallest available census unit, the enumeration area (EA), as the base unit. This neighborhood map was then used as the basis for mapping spatial variations in health within the city. The first step in demarcating the boundaries was to identify features that limit a person's movement including the major roads, drainage features, and railroad tracks that people use to partially define their neighborhood boundaries. Once an initial set of boundaries were established, they were iteratively modified by walking the neighborhoods, talking to residents, public officials, and others. The resulting neighborhood map consolidated 1723 EAs into 108 neighborhoods covering the entire Accra metropolitan area. Results indicated that the team achieved 71% accuracy in mapping neighborhoods when the neighborhood keyed to the survey EA was compared with the response given by the interviewees in the 2008–2009 Women's Health Survey of Accra when asked which neighborhood they lived in.

Date: 2013
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/17445647.2013.765366 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:tjomxx:v:9:y:2013:i:1:p:36-42

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/tjom20

DOI: 10.1080/17445647.2013.765366

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Maps is currently edited by Dr Mike Smith, Dr Jeremy Porter and Dr Dick Berg

More articles in Journal of Maps from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().