Environmental sanitation conditions and health impact: a case-control study

• Main Authors: Léo Heller, Enrico Antonio Colosimo, Carlos Mauricio de Figueiredo Antunes
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Sociedade Brasileira de Medicina Tropical (SBMT) 2003
• Subjects: Diarrhea; Hygiene practices; Model for priority setting; Urban refuse; Water supply; Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine; RC955-962; Arctic
• Online Access: https://doaj.org/article/64c4a17317bb4ee7955cfc8dc60c34fa

This epidemiological investigation examines the impact of several environmental sanitation conditions and hygiene practices on diarrhea occurrence among children under five years of age living in an urban area. The case-control design was employed; 997 cases and 999 controls were included in the investigation. Cases were defined as children with diarrhea and controls were randomly selected among children under five years of age. After logistic regression adjustment, the following variables were found to be significantly associated with diarrhea: washing and purifying fruit and vegetables; presence of wastewater in the street; refuse storage, collection and disposal; domestic water reservoir conditions; feces disposal from swaddles; presence of vectors in the house and flooding in the lot. The estimates of the relative risks reached values up to 2.87. The present study revealed the feasibility of developing and implementing an adequate model to establish intervention priorities in the field of environmental sanitation.