Impact of socio-economic factors and domestic practices on Prevalence of diarrhea among children under age 5 years

Abstract

The child mortality in Pakistan is highest among other South Asian countries. Diarrhea is the second leading cause for child mortality in Pakistan. The inability to protect our children against a curable disease has its roots deeply embedded into the socio economic conditions and domestic practices of households and communities. The socio economic conditions determine the choices people can make & the facilities they can claim. The domestic practices are the habits and household culture. The study attempts to investigate the impact of socio economic factors and domestic practices on the diarrhea incidence. The quantitative data was obtained from PDHS 2012-2013 and ordinal logit regression was applied on the obtained relevant variables. The qualitative study was conducted in two public hospitals and one military run hospital of Islamabad and Rawalpindi, Pakistan. The results tell us that malnutrition is cause and result of diarrhea, proper breastfeeding is important for protecting children against the disease, awareness of mothers determines the type of health facilities and treatment available to children, water and sanitation is crucial in diarrhea incidence and share a direct relation with the disease, overcrowding m household cannot be ignored when digging into the underlying reasons. The results show that if there are more children under age 5 years in house then there will higher chances of prevalence of diarrhea. If the bread winner is earning not only for his nuclear family but for others too it increases the chances of diarrhea as it suggest that the resources are divided and reduced. It has been observed that intake of Vitamin A, vitamin Al and Zinc is significant in decreasing the rates of diarrhea among children and Vitamin A stands most significant for this purpose. The analysis of socio economic conditions and domestic practices highlights the need to put efforts into adequate prevention and disease management.