MST-School of Public Health

Permanent URI for this community

https://repository.ku.ac.ke/handle/123456789/5350

Browse

Browsing MST-School of Public Health by Author "Akunga, Daniel"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Assessement of Diarrhoeal Disease Attributable to Water, Sanitation and Hygiene among under Five in Kasarani, Nairobi County
    (2014-03-05) Kimani, Humprey Mbuti; Akunga, Daniel; Anyango, S. O.
    Cause of diarrhea is known to have many risk factors. They include unsafe water, lack of water leading to low personal and domestic hygiene, poor water infrastructural and management systems. Contamination of drinking water is known to be a problem in many developing countries. This is even of more concern in high residential low income areas. Nairobi City is not an exception hence this study was conducted in Kasarani to assess diarrhea disease attributed to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) among under-fives. The study aimed at determining the quality of water the households were consuming. The main objective of this study was to establish the association between diarrhea among the under-five and water, sanitation and hygiene. To achieve this goal, the study area was categorized in four study environs namely low density high income (LDHI), medium density middle income (MDMI), high density low income (HDLI and informal settlement low income (ISLI). The study adopted a crosssectional study design. The study used both structured questionnaire and hygiene observational checklist as data collection instruments. To ascertain disease trends among the under fives, the study reviewed disease records from licensed health facilities. Derived values of tables, percentages, graphs and ratios were adopted for data presentation. To determine association and significant differences between variables, data were subjected to inferential statistics and Chi-square tests respectively. For comparisons of quantitative variables, ANOVA test was used. The findings of this study indicated that Nairobi water and sewerage company ( NWSCO) was the main source of water supply in the study environs (100%). Under five children from household consuming less than 60.75litres a day and who were predominantly from (ISLI) were at a higher risk of diarrhoea compared to those who consumed more than 60.75 litres a day (p<0.001). Households experiencing water shortages in frequencies of less than three days were found to carry a higher risk for childhood diarrhoea (p< 0.001). This study determined that water consumed in Kasarani was a risk for childhood diarrhoea (p=0.019) with tap water showing a significantly higher contamination 13.7% than household water container 7.2% for T. Coli bacteria. The microbial results observed attributed contamination to the distribution network or household and personal hygiene among the MDMI, HDLI and ISLI residential environs. Overall, the results indicated that the amount of water a household consumed per day was an important risk factor for childhood diarrhea in the study environs (p= 0.00 1). The study observed that Age of a child (p=0.046), Water treatment method (p=0.002), method of storage of solid waste p
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Assessment of Nutrition Status and Dietary Diversity among Children 6-59 Months in Mathare Valley, Nairobi County, Kenya
    (2014-02-19) Mutakaa, Lisbeth Kageni; Akunga, Daniel; Njogu, Eunice
    Under nutrition is the underlying cause of more than half of all deaths in children aged less than five years worldwide. There are 143 million children under five who are underweight in the developing world. In Kenya, severe acute malnutrition is responsible for 82,000 deaths annually with a significant percentage being from urban slums. The purpose of this study was to assess nutritional status children aged 6-59 months in Mathare valley, a low income settlement in Nairobi. A cross-sectional study design was used. Data was collected using structured and non structured questionnaires. A total of 246 children aged 6-59 months were taken the anthropometric measurements to determine their nutritional status and their caregivers interviewed. Two focus group discussions and 6 Key informant interviews were conducted. The dependent variable was nutritional status of children below five years and independent variables included socioeconomic attributes, dietary intake, and dietary diversity. Descriptive analysis was done using IBM SPSS software version 19 and anthropometry analysis by ENA for SMART. Severe malnutrition measured by MUAC was observed in 6.5% of the children. Severe stunting, wasting and underweight measured using HAZ, WHZ and WAZ.was observed in 5.7%, 4.1% and 4.5% respectively. Among the 246 children, 39.0 had fallen ill within the previous two weeks and several had fallen ill more than once within the same period. The major symptoms included diarrhea, cough and vomiting by 50%, 47.9% and 40.6% respectively. Dietary score for 104(42.1%) households was low. There is need to regularly monitor nutrition status of children below five years and to have up to date data for informed decision making.