Themes identified for neighborhood characteristics and perception questionnaire (NCPQ) for assessing neighborhood environments in Karachi, Pakistan

Themes identified for Neighborhood Characteristics and Perception Questionnaire (NCPQ) for assessing neighborhood environments in Karachi, Pakistan   

 Naveed Janjua¹ and Romaina Iqbal²

 

1. Epidemiologist, Epidemiology Services, BC Center for Disease Control, Canada
   

 

2. Departments of Community Health Sciences and Medicine, Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan
   

 Background: Social and physical characteristics and perceptions of residents about their neighborhoods influence their health status. To assess the impact of neighborhood characteristics on health we need local context specific tools as tools developed in the West may not be applicable in developing countries. Such tools are not available for developing countries. We collected data from individuals for the purpose of designing an interviewing tool to assess neighborhood characteristics and perceptions.

 

 Methods: We conducted 6 focus groups discussions (FDG), each consisting of 6-8 participants to generate themes that would help define characteristics/perception of residents of different neighborhoods in Karachi, Pakistan. Our FDGs included groups of public health students, medical students, data collectors working at our department and a group of drivers. We listed the emerging themes and organized them in order of their frequency of occurrence and emphasis.

 Results:
Social disorder, e.g. experiencing fear of being robbed, general satisfaction e.g. happy to be living in that neighborhood, sharing of resources e.g. loaning spices to neighbors, social interaction e.g. children engaged in various activities , social cohesion e.g. helping neighbors in case of need were some of the emerging themes.

 

 Conclusion
The broad categories of themes that emerged from our work included themes similar to those observed in the West but the items within these themes are quite different. Some of the characteristics were more specific to local context. Thus, local tools are important for measuring residents’ perceptions and characteristics of their neighborhoods.