Environmental threats to child health

Development
Health Child in 2011 conducted a baseline survey among 344 sampled households in Eastern Uganda”. The research Correlated household sanitation to vital child health indicators including child nutrition, child illnesses
Design
The survey employed a cross-sectional study design, using both qualitative and quantitative data collection methods.
Findings
The mean number of people living in each household in the survey was 6. Mean number of children in each household was 4. Majority (60%) of the respondent reported that they don’t do anything to the water to make it safer to drink. 54% of the households own un-cemented pit latrines, while 22% use public pit latrines. nearly two-thirds (60%) households lack waste pits while (54%) lacked plate stands. Prevalence of diarrhea was at 20% attributed poor hygienic practices relating to waste disposal, food handling, and hand washing practices.
Stunting among children was at 43.5% stunted or severely stunted. 12.5% underweight or severely underweight and 7.8% wasted or severely wasted. Child nutritional status of was highly impacted by illness/infection and lack of safe clean water, safe sanitation facilities

In a period of 30 years, Brazil experienced successive development changes, becoming from a low-income country, with a large portion of rural population and a complex health system, a middle-income country, urbanized, with a unified health system. Life expectancy at birth increased five years per decade, due to the reduction of deaths from infectious diseases and success in controlling HIV/AIDS and fertility rates decreased from five children per woman to less than two. However, still remains huge inequalities in sexual and reproductive health rights, including sexual activity without coercion, reproductive choice, contraception, safe pregnancy and motherhood, as well as the consequences of abortion. The objective of this study is to characterize and analyze the reproductive behaviours and health situation of the population living in areas of socio-environmental risk, guided by the importance of understanding the different needs of the most vulnerable social groups. The Social Inclusion and Exclusion Index, calculated for risk áreas, ilustrates the inequalities that the average indicators of Santos hide, unveiling the curtain is possible to discover in all its crudeness the naked city, the wealth of the few and the misery of the many steep hills, the abandoned historical center and the west area of the endless palafittes.

Abstract
Indoor Air Pollution (IAP) has become a major concern in India over the years. Large part of the Indian population is exposed to various types of unclean fuels in the household damaging health severely. PM10 and PM2.5 penetrate deep into the lungs and hence has greatest health-damaging potential. The objectives of this study is to analyze the various household characteristics and socio-economic factors that control use of unclean fuel and indoor air pollution are examined and the major health hazards due to IAP are also assessed. Cross-tabulation and custom tables are prepared and Logistic Regression analysis has been done with the SPSS-20 statistical software package. Data from NFHS-I, NFHS-II and NFHS-III of IIPS, Mumbai and GOI has been used to examine the various types of diseases due to IAP and level and trend of various types fuels used in India. Goal number 7 and 8 of MDG calls for environmental sustainability. It is also relevant for MDG goals reducing child mortality and improving maternal health. Though percentage share of household using unclean fuels has fallen substantially by 21 percent between NFHS-I And NFHS-III but more than one-third of women, rural population are vulnerable to the exposure of this pollution.

The study examines the role of one of the largest public works program in the world-the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) - in buffering the negative effects of early childhood exposure to rainfall shocks on long-term health outcomes. Exploiting the spatial and temporal variation in coverage of the scheme, the study estimates the extent to which nutritional insults in early childhood can be offset in the presence of the policy. The study integrates detailed administrative records of rainfall shock and phase-wise roll-out information of NREGS with an unique household level panel data-the Young Lives survey- conducted over three waves (2002, 2006-07 and 2009-10) in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India, which follows two age cohorts of children every four years. Using child fixed effects estimation the study finds modest but significant buffering impacts of the scheme on height-for-age of children in the younger cohort, which is robust to alternative measures of drought and coverage. We find this mitigating effect is significant for kids with lower educated mothers and more pronounced for girls than boys.

Information on the types of energy used for heating, lighting and cooking among households is important for a number of health and environmental reasons. This paper attempts to profile the different types of energy use for cooking in households in North (Morocco), West (Nigeria), East (Kenya) and Southern (South Africa) Africa. Data from Demographic and Health Surveys as well as the South African Community Survey from 2007 are here employed. Methods of analysis include a proportional rate of households using the different energy sources (paraffin, coal, gas and electricity) and regression analysis to assess if associations exist between characteristics of the household head and their type of energy usage in the household. This latter method produces odds ratios which explain the likelihood of usage by demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of the household head.

The child health situation in India has been improving slowly over the past few years and remains a major development challenge for India. Highest number of child deaths in world takes place in India. Nutrition level has not much improved form NFHS-2 to NFHS-3. The main purpose of the study to asses and compare the overall health of children in northern and southern states of India and to examine the relationship between several household and development related environmental factors to the health and survival of children in rural parts of two different northern and southern regions of India. Data from NFHS-3 has used for these purposes. Several indicators of nutrition and morbidity are used. Poor sanitation and electricity facilities significantly reduce the chances of children to secure better health in the both the regions. Poor water condition is also founds to be significant impact on wasting among children. Use of non-solid cooking fuel is also associated with survival and health situation of children. Education status of mother was very important determinants of child health and survival. Non nuclear families are also founds to be better than nuclear families in northern region but opposite is true for southern region.

It is important to investigate whether patterns of responsible environmental behaviors such as conservation behaviors and risk and protective factors that influence the development of these behaviors are cross-nationally similar. This study examined a sample of 1866 students in Grade 9 (age 15 years) drawn from schools in Mumbai, India. These students were compared to similar samples in Melbourne, Australia and Seattle in the US using the International Youth Development Study. Students were asked how often over the past 12 months they had “made a personal effort to care for the environment in your daily life (like recycled waste or reduced energy use)?” Engagement in these behaviors 10 or more times per year was used to indicate “conservation behavior”. Rates of conservation behavior for boys and for girls in Mumbai were similar to rates in Melbourne and Seattle. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to examine predictors of conservation behavior in the three samples. Low rates of conservation behavior were found in India. Children internationally have relatively low rates of engagement in conservation behaviors. There are similar cross-national predictors suggesting that efforts to increase conservation behaviors may be similar in different nations.

Malnutrition remains the world's most serious health problem and the single biggest contributor to maternal/child mortality. Improved nutrition before and during pregnancy means better health for the mother. It is on that note that the present study attempts to identify different types of food items in the study area, examine the food types that are commonly consumed and relate consumption with childbirth outcome in Ogoja and Obudu local Government Areas of Cross River State, Nigeria. The study area included two Local Government Areas of Northern Cross River State, Nigeria. Data for this study came from a community-based, cross-sectional survey of women conducted in 2007–2010 in the two LGAs of Cross River State. The results shows that a majority of food items found in the study are carbohydrate and are consumed by pregnant women. The consumption of these food items imparted negatively on childbirth outcome. Women who consumed proteinous food had better child birth outcome compared to those who consumed other types. Availability was at the foundations of nutritional consumption. Making available certain food and their consumption

Child mortality rate in Nigeria is one of the highest in the world. Environmental issues like poor housing and non-improved drinking water source are major challenges to improved child health outcomes.
The main objective of this study is to examine the relationship between housing type, household drinking water and child morbidity in Nigeria.
The study will employ secondary data. Secondary data for the study will be extracted from the 2008 Nigeria Demographic and Health survey (NDHS). Data on ever married women aged 15-49 years that have had at least a child within the last five years will be extracted for 33,385 women sampled from the NDHS (2008). Data will be analyzed using appropriate descriptive and inferential statistics.
It is expected that there will be relationship between housing type, source of drinking water and incidence of childhood diseases. Also, it is expected that there will be association between housing type and treatment of childhood diseases.
The findings from the study are expected to give more insight to the influence of the environmental factors (housing and water) on child heath outcomes. The study will also document areas of priorities for achieving improved child health

Deaths are not randomly distributed in the course of the year; they often exhibit distinct seasonal variations. In the northern hemisphere, seasonal patterns are mostly characterized by a summer trough and a winter peak in adult mortality, predominantly due to respiratory, cerebrovascular, and ischemic heart diseases. There has been little research conducted on seasonal mortality in developing countries because of the lack of adequate data. Tacking advantage of a long series of death records registered in the urban setting of Antananarivo since 1976, we examine seasonal patterns of all-cause and cause-specific mortality. We show that the seasonality of mortality is much more marked in young children and the elderly than in adults of working age. Child mortality is higher during the rainy season because of infectious and parasitic diseases, as well as nutritional deficiencies. By contrast, the elderly die more during the cold months of July and August, mainly because of diseases of the circulatory and respiratory systems. The seasonality of child deaths has significantly reduced over the last thirty years whereas it has not changed for people aged 60 and over.