Diarrhea Disease among Children under 5 Years of Age: A Global Systematic Review

Diarrhea diseases remain the second leading cause of death among children under five years globally. Nearly one in every five child deaths, about 1.6 million each year, are due to diarrhea. Further, diarrhea kills more young children than malaria, measles and Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) combined. As a result, better understanding of childhood diarrhea occurrence can perhaps help reduce associated morbidity and mortality rates. Therefore, this study conducted a global systematic review on occurrence of childhood diarrhea. The broad objective of this study was to review present and past researches on childhood diarrhea and most importantly for children under 5 years of age. The review focused on understanding the burden of diarrhea, causes of childhood diarrhea and solutions to the disease. A systematic literature review was conducted using the databases of PubMed, CINAHL, Web of Science and Google Scholar. Search key terms used were childhood diarrhea, risk factors and intervention practices. Journal articles and related reports were filtered and limited from 2005 to 2020. Sixty-one reports and articles that met inclusion criteria were used in this review. Review found that, childhood diarrhea imposes economic costs on the health system and families. Also, repeated bouts of diarrhea can lead to malnutrition, stunting and delayed brain growth later in life and can lead to stress and tension to the affected households. The dependence on open water sources which are often contaminated with fecal materials was found as the major cause of the rising prevalence of childhood diarrhea. Other important factors were poor hygienic practices and lack of sanitation facilities contribute to the spread of diarrhea diseases. Improvements in the quality of drinking water, sanitation facilities and hygiene practices especially in low and middle income countries have been suggested by many studies as an intervention to reduce childhood diarrhea.

Spatial Modelling of Current and Future Piped Domestic Water Demand in Athi River Town, Kenya

Water scarcity is currently still a global challenge despite the fact that water sustains life on earth. An understanding of domestic water demand is therefore vital for effective water management. In order to understand and predict future water demand, appropriate mathematical models are needed. The present work used Geographic Information Systems (GIS) based regression models;Geographically weighted regression (GWR) and Ordinary Least Square (OLS) to model domestic water demand in Athi river town. We identified a total of 7 water determinant factors in our study area. From these factors, 4 most significant ones (household size, household income, meter connections and household rooms) were identified using OLS. Further, GWR technique was used to investigate any intrinsic relationship between the factors and water demand occurrence. GWR coefficients values computed were mapped to exhibit the relationship and strength of each explanatory variable to water demand. By comparing OLS and GWR models with both AIC value and R2 value, the results demonstrated GWR model as capable of projecting water demand compared to OLS model. The GWR model was therefore adopted to predict water demand in the year 2022. It revealed domestic water demand in 2017 was estimated at 721,899 m3 compared to 880,769 m3 in 2022, explaining an increase of about 22%. Generally, the results of this study can be used by water resource planners and managers to effectively manage existing water resources and as baseline information for planning a cost-effective and reliable water supply sources to the residents of a town.