Dataset Information

Spatio-temporal analysis of mortality among children under the age of five in Manhica (Mozambique) during the period 1997-2005.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Reducing childhood mortality is the fourth goal of the Millennium Development Goals agreed at the United Nations Millennium Summit in September 2000. However, childhood mortality in developing countries remains high. Providing an accurate picture of space and time-trend variations in child mortality in a region might generate further ideas for health planning actions to achieve such a reduction. The purpose of this study was to examine the spatio-temporal variation for child mortality rates in Manhiça, a district within the Maputo province of southern rural Mozambique during the period 1997-2005 using a proper generalized linear mixed model.

Results

The results showed that childhood mortality in all the area was modified from year to year describing a convex time-trend but the spatial pattern described by the neighbourhood-specific underlying mortality rates did not change during the entire period from 1997 to 2005, where neighbourhoods with highest risks are situated in the peripheral side of the district. The spatial distribution, though more blurred here, was similar to the spatial distribution of child malaria incidence in the same area. The peak in mortality rates observed in 2001 could have been caused by the precipitation system that started in early February 2000, following which heavy rains flooded parts of Mozambique's southern provinces. However, the mortality rates at the end of the period returned to initial values.

Conclusions

The results of this study suggest that the health intervention programmes established in Manhiça to alleviate the effects of flooding on child mortality should cover a period of around five years and that special attention might be focused on eradicating malaria transmission. These outcomes also suggest the utility of suitably modelling space-time trend variations in a region when a point effect of an environmental factor affects all the study area.

SUBMITTER: Escaramis G

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3050678 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Spatio-temporal analysis of mortality among children under the age of five in Manhiça (Mozambique) during the period 1997-2005.

Escaramís Geòrgia G Carrasco Josep L JL Aponte John J JJ Nhalungo Delino D Nhacolo Ariel A Alonso Pedro P Ascaso Carlos C

International journal of health geographics 20110218

<h4>Background</h4>Reducing childhood mortality is the fourth goal of the Millennium Development Goals agreed at the United Nations Millennium Summit in September 2000. However, childhood mortality in developing countries remains high. Providing an accurate picture of space and time-trend variations in child mortality in a region might generate further ideas for health planning actions to achieve such a reduction. The purpose of this study was to examine the spatio-temporal variation for child m ...[more]

PMID: 21332980

Similar Datasets

Project description:OBJECTIVES:Estimating associations between somatic and socioeconomic risk factors and post-discharge under-five mortality. DESIGN:Register-based national cohort study using multiple Cox regression. PARTICIPANTS:The population of 1,263,795 Danish children live-born 1997-2016 who survived until date of first discharge to the home after birth was followed from that date until death, emigration, 5 years of age or 31 December 2016. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES:(A) Mortality hazard ratios (HRs) among all children, (B) mortality HRs among children without severe chronic disease, and (C) mortality HRs among children without severe chronic disease or asthma. MAIN RESULTS:In the total population (1,947 deaths) severe chronic disease was associated with mortality HR = 15.28 (95% CI: 13.77-16.95). In children without severe chronic-disease (719 deaths) other somatic risk factors were immature birth HR = 3.40 (1.92-6.02), maternal smoking HR = 1.84 (1.55-2.18) and low birth weight HR = 1.74 (1.21-2.51). Socioeconomic risk factors for mortality included: maternal age < 25 years HR = 1.91 (1.38-2.64) compared to > 35 years (similar for 30-35 years and 25-29 years), lowest vs. highest family income tertile HR = 1.76 (1.23-2.51), not living with both parents HR = 1.63 (1.25-2.13), maternal unemployment HR = 1.54 (1.12-2.12), presence of siblings HR = 1.44 (1.20-1.71) and secondary vs. tertiary parental education HR = 1.33 (1.07-1.65) for fathers and HR = 1.23 (1.01-1.52) for mothers. Factors not found to be associated with child mortality in this population included presence of asthma HR = 1.29 (0.83-1.98) and non-Danish ethnicity HR = 0.98 (0.70-1.37). CONCLUSIONS:Childhood death after discharge to the home after birth and before 5 years of age is a very rare event in Denmark. This 'post-discharge' mortality was heavily associated with severe chronic disease. In children without severe chronic disease, immature birth, maternal smoking and certain socioeconomic characteristics were noticeable risk factors. Mortality may possibly be decreased by focusing on vulnerable groups.

Project description:Little is known about how young Africans have made sense of the dramatic ways in which the HIV epidemic has evolved, and how that sense-making varies across countries with different epidemiological and sociocultural profiles. Symbolic representations of HIV and people living with HIV influence prevention, stigma, treatment-seeking, and illness experience. We compared social representations of HIV among young people from Senegal, Burkina Faso, Nigeria (South-East), Kenya, and Swaziland between 1997 and 2014. From a pool of 32,759 HIV-themed creative narratives contributed by 10-24 year-olds to scriptwriting competitions at eight time points (1997, 2000, 2002, 2005, 2008, 2011, 2013, and 2014), we randomly sampled 1937 narratives, stratified by author's sex, age, and rural/urban residence. We quantified components of each narrative and calculated descriptive statistics and adjusted odds ratios, controlling for year, country, and author demographics. From 2005 onwards, representations of death, treatment access, and hopefulness improved significantly. Representations of death reached their lowest point in 2013, while biomedical treatment and hope peaked in 2011 and 2008, respectively, then declined. Narratives increasingly focused on female protagonists. Nigerian texts had significantly higher odds of death and blame, and lower odds of hope. A focus on life post-infection and representations of support for characters living with HIV increased with country HIV prevalence. Narratives by older authors were less blaming and more hopeful, supportive, and prevention-focused. While aggregate social representations in the narratives from 2005 to 2008-11 reflect increased optimism fostered by access to antiretroviral therapy (ART), positive developments are not sustained at this level. Stigmatizing representations persist, particularly in Nigeria. The hope-promoting and stigma-reducing influence of the advent of ART access may have partially run its course by 2011/2013. However, significant temporal and cross-national differences point to opportunities to reframe HIV in more constructive ways and contribute to improved education, communication, and stigma-reduction efforts.

Project description:Aims: This study examines the dynamics of malaria as influenced by meteorological factors in French Guiana from 2005 to 2019. It explores spatial hotspots of malaria transmission and aims to determine the factors associated with variation of hotspots with time. Methods: Data for individual malaria cases came from the surveillance system of the Delocalized Centers for Prevention and Care (CDPS) (n = 17) from 2005-2019. Meteorological data was acquired from the NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC) database. The Box-Jenkins autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model tested stationarity of the time series, and the impact of meteorological indices (issued from principal component analysis-PCA) on malaria incidence was determined with a general additive model. Hotspot characterization was performed using spatial scan statistics. Results: The current sample includes 7050 eligible Plasmodium vivax (n = 4111) and Plasmodium falciparum (n = 2939) cases from health centers across French Guiana. The first and second PCA-derived meteorological components (maximum/minimum temperature/minimum humidity and maximum humidity, respectively) were significantly negatively correlated with total malaria incidence with a lag of one week and 10 days, respectively. Overall malaria incidence decreased across the time series until 2017 when incidence began to trend upwards. Hotspot characterization revealed a few health centers that exhibited spatial stability across the entire time series: Saint Georges de l'Oyapock and Antecume Pata for P. falciparum, and Saint Georges de l'Oyapock, Antecume Pata, Régina and Camopi for P. vivax. Conclusions: This study highlighted changing malaria incidence in French Guiana and the influences of meteorological factors on transmission. Many health centers showed spatial stability in transmission, albeit not temporal. Knowledge of the areas of high transmission as well as how and why transmission has changed over time can inform strategies to reduce the transmission of malaria in French Guiana. Hotspots should be further investigated to understand other influences on local transmission, which will help to facilitate elimination.

Project description:ObjectiveTwo pertussis outbreaks occurred in Olmsted County, Minnesota, during 2004-2005 and 2012 (5-10 times higher than other years), with significantly higher incidence than for the State. We aimed to assess whether there were similar spatio-temporal patterns between the two outbreaks.SettingOlmsted County, Minnesota, USA PARTICIPANTS: We conducted a population-based retrospective cohort study of all Olmsted County residents during the 2004-2005 and 2012 outbreaks, including laboratory-positive pertussis cases.Primary outcome measureFor each outbreak, we estimated (1) age-specific incidence rate using laboratory-positive pertussis cases (numerator) and the Rochester Epidemiology Project Census (denominator), a medical record-linkage system for virtually all Olmsted County residents, and (2) pertussis case density using kernel density estimation to identify areas with high case density. To account for population size, we calculated relative difference of observed density and expected density based on age-specific incidence.ResultsWe identified 157 and 195 geocoded cases in 2004-2005 and 2012, respectively. Incidence was the highest among adolescents (ages 11 to <14 years) for both outbreaks (9.6 and 7.9 per 1000). The 2004-2005 pertussis outbreak had higher incidence in winter (52% of cases) versus summer in 2012 (53%). We identified a consistent area with higher incidence at the beginning (ie, first quartile) of two outbreaks, but it was inconsistent for later quartiles. The relative difference maps for the two outbreaks suggest a greater role of neighbourhood population size in 2012 compared with 2004-2005.ConclusionsComparing spatio-temporal patterns between two pertussis outbreaks identified a consistent geographical area with higher incidence of pertussis at the beginning of outbreaks in this community. This finding can be tested in future outbreaks, and, if confirmed, can be used for identifying epidemiological risk factors clustered in such areas for geographically targeted intervention.