Katie Overbey, Kellogg Schwab and Natalie Exum

For children in low-income countries, diarrhoea remains a major cause of death and can lead to long-term health consequences. Accurate estimates of childhood diarrhoeal illness are crucial to evaluating the success of campaigns to defeat diarrhoea and improve health in countries where the burden of diarrhoea is high.

In our study, recently published in the IJE, we found that caregivers may underestimate diarrhoeal diseases in children aged under 5 years when asked to recall whether the children had diarrhoea in the previous 2 weeks. Compared with a 1-week recall period, there was a consistent underestimation of the prevalence of diarrhoea across five countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

Continue reading “Childhood diarrhoeal illness may be underestimated in national health surveys” →