Trop Med Int Health. 2009 Nov 2.
Is mortality among under-five children in Nairobi slums seasonal?
Mutisya M, Orindi B, Emina J, Zulu E, Ye Y. African Population and Health Research Center, Nairobi, Kenya.
Objective: To investigate the seasonal pattern of overall mortality among children aged below 5 years living in two informal settlements in Nairobi City.
Methods: We used data collected from January 2003 to December 2005 in the Nairobi Urban Health and Demographic Surveillance System on demographic events (birth, death, and migration). Analyses of seasonal effects on under-five mortality are based on Poisson regression controlling for sex, age, study site and calendar year.
Results: During the study period, there were 17 878 children below 5 years in the study sites. Overall 436 under-five deaths were recorded. The overall death rate for the under-five children was 19.95 per 1 000 person years. There is a significant seasonal variation of under-five mortality. The mortality risk was significantly higher in the second and third quarters of year than in the fourth quarter (RR = 1.6, CI: 1.3-2.2 and RR = 1.5, CI: 1.1-2.0).
Conclusion: This paper demonstrates that overall mortality among under-five children in the urban poor is seasonal. Overall during the second quarter of the year, the death rate increases by nearly twofold. This evidence generated here may help to support well targeted interventions in reducing under-five mortality in the slums.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Climatic changes has become the center of discussion recently. The changes have been associated with a number of things that are currently happening e.g food security in most parts of Africa and raising sea levels. These changes have affected seasonality. The adverse affects of climatic change on morbidity and mortality have not been well documented. This paper thus comes a time when a lot of research is need to document the effect of climatic change in a wide range of areas. The paper target the urban poor, a rapidly growing population in the developing nations, that also is posing a new challenge in implementing health, planning and land policies for these nations. The authors have touched an area though researched earlier but also an area that needs attention with the current world situation and the era of HIV aids.