Diarrhoea, acute respiratory infection, and fever among children in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)

Ngianga-Bakwin Kandala, University of Warwick

The links between health, geographic location, environment and economic development need to be better understood if the problems associated with these issues that face developing countries are to be overcome. Several years of war have created a humanitarian crisis in the DRC with extensive disruption of civil society and the economy, which has devastated health services. These challenges exist against a background of heavy disease burden, especially HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, diarrhoea, acute respiratory infection, and malaria. This study uses the 2001 Multiple Indicators Cluster Survey to disentangle children’s health inequalities by mapping the impact of geographical location on childhood morbidity and accounting for important risk factors using a Bayesian geo-additive regression model. Although low prevalence of childhood diarrhoea, acute respiratory infection and fever is observed in the western provinces, and a relatively higher prevalence is observed in the southeastern provinces, each disease has its geographical pattern of variation.