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Unacceptable housing conditions prevalent in Indian urban slums adversely affect the health of residents. The Government of India initiated the Basic Services to the Urban Poor (BSUP) as a sub-mission under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), to provide basic services to the urban poor. As per the available scientific lite...
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The study assessed substandard housing contributory factors of neighbourhoods in Port Harcourt municipality, Nigeria. The objectives of the study are to identify factors that are contributing to substandard housing in Port Harcourt municipality; assess the impact of contributory factors to substandard housing in the study area; and identify physica...
Citations
... walls, roof, and doors-all directly affect the air exchange rate 14 . Regarding the building materials used in homes, studies from Pakistan 11 , India 15 and Nigeria 16 have shown that children who live in houses composed of poor construction materials like hard-packed mud and thatch have higher risk of having health outcomes in contrast to those who reside in houses with concrete foundations, tile roofs, and walls made of fired mud brick. Therefore, housing construction materials may contribute to high rates of childhood ARI in Bangladesh. ...
Despite several studies conducted to investigate housing factors, the effects of housing construction materials on childhood ARI symptoms in Bangladesh remain unclear. Hence, the study aimed to measure such a correlation among children under the age of five. A hospital-based case-control study was conducted, involving 221 cases and 221 controls from January to April 2023. Bivariate and multivariate binary logistic regression was performed to measure the degree of correlation between housing construction materials and childhood ARI symptoms. Households composed of natural floor materials had 2.7 times (95% confidence interval 1.27-5.57) and households composed of natural roof materials had 1.8 times (95% confidence interval 1.01-3.11) higher adjusted odds of having under-five children with ARI symptoms than household composed of the finished floor and finished roof materials respectively. Households with natural wall type were found protective against ARI symptoms with adjusted indoor air pollution determinants. The study indicates that poor housing construction materials are associated with an increased risk of developing ARI symptoms among under-five children in Bangladesh. National policy regarding replacing poor housing materials with concrete, increasing livelihood opportunities, and behavioral strategies programs encouraging to choice of quality housing construction materials could eliminate a fraction of the ARI burden.
... This study is part of a broader investigation that seeks to assess the influence of housing conditions on the health of children aged under five in urban settings. The detailed protocol for this overarching research has been previously published, serving as the foundational framework for this study [14]. In this study, we are presenting the effects of the built environment on the cumulative incidence of acute diarrheal disease. ...
... Considering p = 25.2 (proportion) from previous research and 20% relative precision, the estimated sample size was 283 [19]. The original study was conducted with a sample size of 620 to compare the health status of under-five-year-old children living in BSUP (N = 299) and slum colonies (N = 321), which is higher than the required sample size [14]. Therefore, it can also be used to measure the cumulative incidence of diarrhea in a given area. ...
Background
Diarrhea is a major public health problem in under-five children worldwide. Various sociodemographic, environmental, and behavioral factors play a role in the occurrence of diarrheal disease in children under the age of five. This study aims to estimate the cumulative incidence of acute diarrheal diseases during a one-year study period and examine its association with the built environment factors among children under the age of five in selected underprivileged areas of Bhopal.
Methodology
We conducted this study in Bhopal, a city in central India. We surveyed the underprivileged dwellers of Vajpayee Nagar, Sanjay Nagar, and Mother India Colony of Bhopal city. This is a prospective cohort study with a one-year follow-up period to examine the cumulative incidence of acute diarrheal diseases among under-five-year-old children in the study area. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 25 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA).
Results
Data were collected from February 2021 to February 2022. A total of 658 families of eligible children were contacted to participate in the study. After excluding 38 participants for various reasons (denied consent: 3; lost to follow-up: 32; moved out of the study area: 3), data were finally analyzed for 620 participants. In the study among the under-five-year-old children, the cumulative incidence of acute diarrheal diseases was 23.8% (148 out of 620). In our study, lower age (adjusted odds ratio (OR) = 0.86, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.75-0.99, p = 0.041) and non-availability of flush latrine in the house (adjusted OR = 4.95, 95% CI = 1.80-13.59, p = 0.002) were statistically associated with a higher incidence of acute diarrheal disease among the study population.
Conclusions
In our investigation, we observed a cumulative incidence of diarrhea at 23.8% (148 out of 620) among the underprivileged under-five population residing in Bhopal, India. This incidence exhibited significant associations with younger age and the absence of in-house flush latrines.
... India is among the top 15 most afflicted countries in terms of the overall number of pneumonia episodes and related child mortality. In India, ARI-related illnesses claim the lives of almost 0.4 million children under the age of five every year [30]. Data from paediatric hospital admissions show that this number equates to 13-16% of all child fatalities [31,32]. ...
Objective
Exposure to tobacco smoke causes numerous health problems in children, and create burden on the population in terms of economy, morbidity and mortality. In order to protect the child from exposure to tobacco smoke in the outdoor environment, sufficient legislative enactments are available in Indian legislation. The objective of the present study is to investigate the fact that in absence of any specific laws stating about protection of children from exposure to tobacco smoke in indoor environment, whether outdoor related legislations are sufficient to protect children from exposureand to explore the scope for enforcement of both state and central laws in improving health of children in India.
Study design
The study considered cross-sectional survey data of Demographic and Health Survey Data on India, National Family and Health Survey fourth round (NFHS-4) for the year 2015-16 on Indian children (below age of four).
Methods
Both bivariate and multivariate logistic regression models were used to assess the impact of anti-smoking laws on the prevalence of acute respiratory infection (ARI) based on the place of residence, indoor tobacco smoke exposure and age of the child.
Results
The results have shown an inclination of ARI among children in association with states having single law, rural area resident, exposure to indoor tobacco smoke and age of the child, both as independent or in combination are quite conspicuous, and are found to be underestimated. The logistic regression also revealed the influence of these factors both as independent and even in interaction with other.
Conclusions
Legislative intervention through both at central (or national)and state levels through anti-smoking laws will decrease the indoor tobacco smoke exposure as a result ARI prevalence will also decrease among children in India.
Background
Pregnant women and children are vulnerable to air pollution-related adverse health effects, especially those residing in low-resource and high-exposure settings like India. However, evidence regarding the effects of early-life exposure to air particulate matter (PM) on childhood growth/developmental trajectory is contradictory; evidence about specific constituents of PM like heavy metals is limited. Similarly, there are few Indian cohorts investigating PM exposure and the incidence of acute respiratory infection during infancy. This study protocol aims to fill these critical gaps in knowledge.
Methods
We aim to establish a mother-child birth cohort through the enrolment of 1566 pregnant women residing in two urban areas of central India. Antenatally we will collect socioeconomic, demographic, and clinical information, and details of confounding variables from these mothers, who will then be followed up till delivery to assess their exposure to air PM. Biomonitoring to assess heavy metal exposure will be limited to the top five heavy metals found in the air of their residential city. At delivery, pregnancy outcomes will be noted followed by postnatal follow-up of live-born children till the first year of life to assess their achievement of growth/development milestones and exposure to pollutants. We will also estimate the incidence of ARI during infancy.
Discussion
This manuscript describes the protocol for an Indian mother-child air pollution birth cohort study which aims to generate comprehensive evidence regarding the adverse effects of early-life exposure to air PM and its constituent heavy metals among Indian children. This study will provide an epidemiological basis for further understanding in this context. Finally, by reporting our carefully planned study methods/outcome measures, which are at par with published and ongoing birth cohorts, we aim to serve as the starting point for similar cohorts in the future which when considered together would generate enough evidence to facilitate context-specific policy-making and development of appropriate prevention and mitigation strategies.
