Fekadu Gedefaw Abeje, Hailemariam Damen, Woldie Firmaye Bogale, Fite Robera Olana, Alemu Kassahun, Worku Alemayehu, Taddesse Lisanu, Bekele Delayehu, Tolera Getachew, Chan Grace J, Abera Muluemebet
Health System and Reproductive Health Research Directorate, Ethiopian Public Health Institute, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Department of Reproductive Health and Population Studies, School of Public Health, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Bahir Dar University, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia.
J Glob Health. 2025 Apr 25;15:04107. doi: 10.7189/jogh.15.04107.
Diarrhoea was the second leading cause of death among children aged <5 years in 2019. Most of these deaths occurred in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Summarising the available up-to-date evidence on the incidence of diarrhoeal disease among children could help track the effectiveness of diarrhoea prevention and control efforts. We summarised available evidence on the incidence of diarrhoea among children aged <5 years in LMICs.
We included cross-sectional or cohort studies that reported diarrhoeal incidence among children aged <5 years in LMICs that were published between 2010-22 in English. Two authors searched, reviewed the quality of the selected articles, and extracted the data. We searched Medline/Pubmed, Web of Science, Scopus, CINHAL, EMBASE, WorldCat, OpenGrey, dissertations/theses, reports, and Google Scholar. We screened articles by title, abstract, and full text.
We included 15 articles that met the inclusion criteria in the analysis. Four studies were from Africa, seven were from Asia, two were from Brazil, and two were from Nicaragua. Seven studies were conducted in urban settings, six in rural settings, and two in urban and rural areas. The highest incidence of diarrhoea was 5200 episodes of diarrhoea per 1000 child-years, and the lowest was 60.4 episodes of diarrhoea per 1000 child-years.
There is limited evidence on the incidence of diarrhoea among children aged <5 years in LMICs. The available studies identified major differences in the incidence of diarrhoea by country, 60.4 in China, and 5200 episodes of diarrhoea per 1000 infants. We recommend more up-to-date primary studies on the incidence of diarrhoea among children aged <5 years in LMICs to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of diarrhoea control and prevention policies and interventions.
PROSPERO: CRD42022290180.
腹泻是2019年5岁以下儿童的第二大死因。这些死亡大多发生在低收入和中等收入国家（LMICs）。总结关于儿童腹泻病发病率的最新可用证据有助于追踪腹泻预防和控制工作的成效。我们总结了低收入和中等收入国家5岁以下儿童腹泻发病率的现有证据。
我们纳入了2010年至2022年间以英文发表的、报告低收入和中等收入国家5岁以下儿童腹泻发病率的横断面研究或队列研究。两位作者进行检索、评估所选文章的质量并提取数据。我们检索了Medline/Pubmed、科学网、Scopus、CINHAL、EMBASE、WorldCat、OpenGrey、学位论文、报告以及谷歌学术。我们通过标题、摘要和全文筛选文章。
我们纳入了15篇符合纳入标准的文章进行分析。4项研究来自非洲，7项来自亚洲，2项来自巴西，2项来自尼加拉瓜。7项研究在城市地区开展，6项在农村地区开展，2项在城乡地区开展。腹泻的最高发病率为每1000儿童年5200例腹泻，最低为每1000儿童年60.4例腹泻。
关于低收入和中等收入国家5岁以下儿童腹泻发病率的证据有限。现有研究发现不同国家腹泻发病率存在重大差异，中国为每1000名婴儿60.4例，而有的国家为每1000儿童年5200例腹泻。我们建议针对低收入和中等收入国家5岁以下儿童腹泻发病率开展更多最新的原发性研究，以监测和评估腹泻控制与预防政策及干预措施的成效。
PROSPERO：CRD42022290180
