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Exploring the Association Between Floods and Diarrhea among Under-five Children in Rural India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2024

Jayanti Saha Open the ORCID record for Jayanti Saha [Opens in a new window] ,
Dilwar Hussain  and
Dhiman Debsarma
Jayanti Saha*
Affiliation:
Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India
Dilwar Hussain
Affiliation:
Centre for the Study of Regional Development, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India
Dhiman Debsarma
Affiliation:
Centre for the Study of Regional Development, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India
*
Corresponding author: Jayanti Saha; Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Objective

Flood is one of the major public health concerns increasing the risk of childhood diarrhea. This study aims to explore the association of floods with diarrhea among under-five children in rural India.

Methods

A cross-sectional study was carried out using large-scale nationally representative data from the National Family Health Survey-5. The Central Water Commission reports between the years 2018 and 2020 were used to group all the districts as non-flood-affected districts or flood-affected districts. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression models were employed to assess the association of floods with childhood diarrhea.

Results

The prevalence of diarrhea was higher among children exposed to three consecutive floods during the year 2019-21 than those children not exposed to flood. Children exposed to flood three times between the year 2018-19 to 2020-21 were associated with a 34% higher likelihood of developing diarrhea than those children exposed to flood one or two times.

Conclusions

Our study suggests that community health workers should target mothers belonging to the poor wealth quintile, young mothers, and mothers with young infants and more children to receive child health related counseling in flood-prone areas.

Keywords

diarrheafloodIndiarisk factor for diarrheaunder-five children
Type
Original Research
Information
Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness , Volume 18 , 2024 , e142
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Society for Disaster Medicine and Public Health, Inc.

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