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Burden of childhood diseases and malnutrition in a semi-urban slum in southern India

BACKGROUND: India has seen rapid unorganized urbanization in the past few decades. However, the burden of childhood diseases and malnutrition in such populations is difficult to quantify. The morbidity experience of children living in semi-urban slums of a southern Indian city is described. METHODS:...

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Autores principales: Sarkar, Rajiv, Sivarathinaswamy, Prabhu, Thangaraj, Bhuvaneshwari, Sindhu, Kulandaipalayam Natarajan Chella, Ajjampur, Sitara Swarna Rao, Muliyil, Jayaprakash, Balraj, Vinohar, Naumova, Elena N, Ward, Honorine, Kang, Gagandeep
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3577473/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23360429
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-13-87
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author Sarkar, Rajiv
Sivarathinaswamy, Prabhu
Thangaraj, Bhuvaneshwari
Sindhu, Kulandaipalayam Natarajan Chella
Ajjampur, Sitara Swarna Rao
Muliyil, Jayaprakash
Balraj, Vinohar
Naumova, Elena N
Ward, Honorine
Kang, Gagandeep
author_facet Sarkar, Rajiv
Sivarathinaswamy, Prabhu
Thangaraj, Bhuvaneshwari
Sindhu, Kulandaipalayam Natarajan Chella
Ajjampur, Sitara Swarna Rao
Muliyil, Jayaprakash
Balraj, Vinohar
Naumova, Elena N
Ward, Honorine
Kang, Gagandeep
author_sort Sarkar, Rajiv
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: India has seen rapid unorganized urbanization in the past few decades. However, the burden of childhood diseases and malnutrition in such populations is difficult to quantify. The morbidity experience of children living in semi-urban slums of a southern Indian city is described. METHODS: A total of 176 children were recruited pre-weaning from four geographically adjacent, semi-urban slums located in the western outskirts of Vellore, Tamil Nadu for a study on water safety and enteric infections and received either bottled or municipal drinking water based on their area of residence. Children were visited weekly at home and had anthropometry measured monthly until their second birthday. RESULTS: A total of 3932 episodes of illness were recorded during the follow-up period, resulting in an incidence of 12.5 illnesses/child-year, with more illness during infancy than in the second year of life. Respiratory, mostly upper respiratory infections, and gastrointestinal illnesses were most common. Approximately one-third of children were stunted at two years of age, and two-thirds had at least one episode of growth failure during the two years of follow up. No differences in morbidity were seen between children who received bottled and municipal water. CONCLUSIONS: Our study found a high burden of childhood diseases and malnutrition among urban slum dwellers in southern India. Frequent illnesses may adversely impact children’s health and development, besides placing an additional burden on families who need to seek healthcare and find resources to manage illness.
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spelling pubmed-35774732013-02-21 Burden of childhood diseases and malnutrition in a semi-urban slum in southern India Sarkar, Rajiv Sivarathinaswamy, Prabhu Thangaraj, Bhuvaneshwari Sindhu, Kulandaipalayam Natarajan Chella Ajjampur, Sitara Swarna Rao Muliyil, Jayaprakash Balraj, Vinohar Naumova, Elena N Ward, Honorine Kang, Gagandeep BMC Public Health Research Article BACKGROUND: India has seen rapid unorganized urbanization in the past few decades. However, the burden of childhood diseases and malnutrition in such populations is difficult to quantify. The morbidity experience of children living in semi-urban slums of a southern Indian city is described. METHODS: A total of 176 children were recruited pre-weaning from four geographically adjacent, semi-urban slums located in the western outskirts of Vellore, Tamil Nadu for a study on water safety and enteric infections and received either bottled or municipal drinking water based on their area of residence. Children were visited weekly at home and had anthropometry measured monthly until their second birthday. RESULTS: A total of 3932 episodes of illness were recorded during the follow-up period, resulting in an incidence of 12.5 illnesses/child-year, with more illness during infancy than in the second year of life. Respiratory, mostly upper respiratory infections, and gastrointestinal illnesses were most common. Approximately one-third of children were stunted at two years of age, and two-thirds had at least one episode of growth failure during the two years of follow up. No differences in morbidity were seen between children who received bottled and municipal water. CONCLUSIONS: Our study found a high burden of childhood diseases and malnutrition among urban slum dwellers in southern India. Frequent illnesses may adversely impact children’s health and development, besides placing an additional burden on families who need to seek healthcare and find resources to manage illness. BioMed Central 2013-01-30 /pmc/articles/PMC3577473/ /pubmed/23360429 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-13-87 Text en Copyright ©2013 Sarkar et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Sarkar, Rajiv
Sivarathinaswamy, Prabhu
Thangaraj, Bhuvaneshwari
Sindhu, Kulandaipalayam Natarajan Chella
Ajjampur, Sitara Swarna Rao
Muliyil, Jayaprakash
Balraj, Vinohar
Naumova, Elena N
Ward, Honorine
Kang, Gagandeep
Burden of childhood diseases and malnutrition in a semi-urban slum in southern India
title Burden of childhood diseases and malnutrition in a semi-urban slum in southern India
title_full Burden of childhood diseases and malnutrition in a semi-urban slum in southern India
title_fullStr Burden of childhood diseases and malnutrition in a semi-urban slum in southern India
title_full_unstemmed Burden of childhood diseases and malnutrition in a semi-urban slum in southern India
title_short Burden of childhood diseases and malnutrition in a semi-urban slum in southern India
title_sort burden of childhood diseases and malnutrition in a semi-urban slum in southern india
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3577473/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23360429
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-13-87
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