Childhood Diarrhea Exhibits Spatiotemporal Variation in Northwest Ethiopia: A SaTScan Spatial Statistical Analysis

Childhood diarrhea continues to be a public health problem in developing countries, including Ethiopia. Detecting clusters and trends of childhood diarrhea is important to designing effective interventions. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate spatiotemporal clustering and seasonal variability...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2015-12, Vol.10 (12), p.e0144690
Main Authors: Azage, Muluken, Kumie, Abera, Worku, Alemayehu, Bagtzoglou, Amvrossios C
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Biometeorology
Child
Child, Preschool
Childhood
Childhood diarrhea
Children
Cholera
Cluster analysis
Clustering
Clusters
Developing countries
Diarrhea
Diarrhea - epidemiology
Drinking water
Environmental aspects
Ethiopia - epidemiology
Female
Health sciences
Humans
Hygiene
Infant
Infectious diseases
LDCs
Male
Models, Biological
Morbidity
Mortality
Patient admissions
Population
Public health
Retrospective Studies
Risk factors
Seasonal variability
Seasonal variations
Seasonal variations (Diseases)
Spatial analysis
Statistical analysis
Statistics
Studies
Trends
Tropical diseases
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Childhood diarrhea continues to be a public health problem in developing countries, including Ethiopia. Detecting clusters and trends of childhood diarrhea is important to designing effective interventions. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate spatiotemporal clustering and seasonal variability of childhood diarrhea in northwest Ethiopia. Retrospective record review of childhood diarrhea was conducted using quarterly reported data to the district health office for the seven years period beginning July 1, 2007. Thirty three districts were included and geo-coded in this study. Spatial, temporal and space-time scan spatial statistics were employed to identify clusters of childhood diarrhea. Smoothing using a moving average was applied to visualize the trends and seasonal pattern of childhood diarrhea. Statistical analyses were performed using Excel® and SaTScan programs. The maps were plotted using ArcGIS 10.0. Childhood diarrhea in northwest Ethiopia exhibits statistical evidence of spatial, temporal, and spatiotemporal clustering, with seasonal patterns and decreasing temporal trends observed in the study area. A most likely purely spatial cluster was found in the East Gojjam administrative zone of Gozamin district (LLR = 7123.89, p
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0144690