. We conducted a four-year (1995-1998) field study in a Peruvian peri-urban community (pueblo joven) to examine the relationship between diarrheal diseases and nutritional status in 230 children less than three years of age. We followed the birth cohort daily for diarrhea and monthly for anthropometry. We modeled diarrheal incidence with a time-to-event regression model that accounted for multiple episodes per child and irregular follow-up periods, and diarrheal duration with a mixed-effects gamma regression model. During 159,551 child-days of follow-up, we identified 1,387 episodes of diarrhea. Mean diarrheal incidence was 3.2 episodes per child-year, however, infants suffered up to 8 diarrheal episodes during the summer. This effect of seasonal variation on diarrheal incidence decreased noticeably with age. Changes in nutritional status were significantly associated with diarrheal incidence. The frequency of diarrhea increased by 12 percent per standard deviation decrease in height-for-age Z-score and five percent per standard deviation decrease in weight-for-height Z-score. Diarrheal episodes in children less than six months of age were also significantly longer lasting than episodes among older children. These results identify infants and children of poor nutritional status as priority risk groups for prevention efforts aimed at reducing the burden of acute childhood diarrhea.
Learning Objectives: From this presentation, participants should recognize that these results identify infants and children of poor nutritional status as priority risk groups for prevention efforts aimed at reducing the burden of acute childhood diarrhea.
Keywords: Diarrhea, Child Health
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.