Using GIS and remotely sensed data to map variabilities in health and wealth outcomes in the neighborhoods of Accra, Ghana

With urbanization continuing to be the dominant trend, the number of urban residents in cities in the developing world is going to dramatically increase over the coming years. Many of these countries have fragile infrastructures and limited capacity to be able track inequalities that exist within their borders. Accurate spatial mapping of health and wealth is required to be able to target areas that require the most assistance and to formulate relevant policies to reduce these inequalities. This is especially true in regards to intra urban inequalities, as large disparities in health and wealth outcomes are apparent over small areas and in many cases are spatially adjoining.;Physical landscape characteristics played a large role in urban development patterns and continue to be connected to health and wealth patterns. Observations from fieldwork in the city of Accra, the capital city of Ghana, led to the following hypotheses; as elevation increased, it appeared that health and wealth indicators improved. Additionally the further you moved away from water bodies, the more vegetation an area contained and the less built up an area was, health and wealth indicators also seemed to improve. All of these landscape characteristics can be measured using GIS and remotely sensed data. Thus, using these observations, can the spatial pattern of health and wealth be established from a distance in a cost effective manner. If so the results can be used by the Governments of the respective country to formulate policy and direct them at the areas that need the most assistance.;Results showed that wealth inequalities were more evident at the surface level and it could be established that inequalities in wealth are significant at the neighborhood level and that these can be predicted using landscape characteristics. However health outcomes seemed to be less clear and inequalities were less apparent.