Reducing the Incidence of Diarrhea in Children
Tier 1 Activities
According to the World Health Organization, diarrheal disease kills an estimated 1.8 million people each year, the majority of whom are under five years of age - accounting for approximately 20% of all deaths for children under five. The majority of these deaths are occurring between the ages of six months and three years of age.
Providing piped water and sanitation infrastructure can reduce child mortality. However, it is expensive to develop in rural communities, and potentially difficult to maintain.
Breast feeding can reduce the incidence of diarrhea between 20-27% in children 6 months of age and younger. Hand Washing will reduce diarrhea in children by between 30% and 53%. SODIS Water Treatment System will reduce diarrhea in children by between 25% and 75%.
Step One: Facilitate a Participatory Community Needs Assessment in Lesson Plan: Prevent Diarrhea Workshop so that community members can discover the problems that transmit diarrheal disease and identify solutions.
These are Tier 1 activities for reducing diarrhea in small children. These Interventions are the quickest acting, the easiest for beneficiaries to understand and adopt, and the least expensive for the beneficiary (no cost/low cost).
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Ten Seed Participatory Needs Assessment. A modified Participatory Learning and Action tool that enables illiterate community members to participate as equal partners in the discussions about their community’s needs. |
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Diarrhea in Children: Promotor Training |
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Breast Feeding and Child Health. Can reduce the incidence of diarrhea between 20-27% in children 6 months of age and younger. |
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Hand Washing. Will reduce diarrhea in children by between 30% and 53%. |
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Safe In-Home Water Storage and Handling. Pure water can become recontaminated with dirty hands, dirty water scoops and dirty storage containers. |
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Chlorinated Water for washing hands, fruits and vegetables, working surfaces and dishes. |
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SODIS Water Treatment System. Will reduce diarrhea in children by between 25% and 75%. |
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Kitchen Hygiene & Health. More than half of food related infections are contracted in the home. |
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Oral Rehydration Techniques. ORT can prevent 90% of child deaths from diarrheal dehydration, and helps prevent more than one million children's deaths each year. |
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Zinc & Vitamin A: Mitigating Diarrhea in Children. Treatment of diarrheal disease with zinc supplementation can reduce the severity and duration of diarrhea episodes. It may also prevent future episodes for up to three months. Other micronutrients, particularly vitamin A, are also important in controlling severe episodes. |
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Coming in November: School Campaigns: latrine, potable water, hand washing and personal hygiene |
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Coming in November: Waste disposal |
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Coming in November: Recognizing childhood illness |
In Guatemala, the prevalence of diarrhea infections in children under six years old increased from 12% in a 1998-99 survey to 30% in a 2000 study. 35% of children in rural areas suffer from diarrhea compared to 25% of children in urban areas.
Malnutrition and diarrhea are linked to each other; inadequate dietary intakes and high rates of infections limit children’s growth and can cause stunting and reduced cognitive performance. In Guatemala, nearly 50% of children under 5 years of age have low height-for-age and most of the height deficiiency of Guatemalan adults can be attributed to growth failure during early childhood.
Diarrheal disease is transmitted by ingesting contaminated food or drink, by direct person-to-person contact, or from contaminated hands. Several child health interventions are effective in preventing and treating diarrhea in children. These include breast feeding, vaccination, oral rehydration therapy, micronutrient supplementation, hand washing, disinfection of water in the home, and hygienic food preparation and storage.
Hand washing with soap after defecation, after cleaningbabies, and before and after handling food has been shown, in randomized trials, to reduce diarrhea in children by between 30% and 47%. Point-of-use water treatment and improved water storage practices have been shown to reduce diarrhea in children from 30% to as high as 83%. Multiple interventions which combined water pumps, hygiene education and latrines have shown a 25% reduction in Diarrhea. Other studies have shown that a combination of clean water, absence of faeces in the yard and hand-washing resulted in 40% less diarrhea than when one practice alone was observed.
This Section Contains:
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Field Notes
