Defining Neighborhood Boundaries for Urban Health Research in Developing Countries: A Case Study of Accra, Ghana.

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.