ABSTRACT Addressing poor pregnancy and childbirth outcomes such as still births, preterm births and neonatal deaths have continued to be a major global challenge. Nations and organizations have invested much effort and resources to promote safe pregnancy and childbirth. Despite this, maternal and perinatal mortalities and morbidities remain high. Though several risk factors predisposing women and their infants to adverse outcomes during pregnancy have been documented, little is known on the f...
ABSTRACT Diarrhoea continues to remain one of the main and the second most significant cause of death globally in children under five years. The number of diarrhoea cases continues to increase every year and is estimated to be 1.7 billion annually. In 2018, in Kenya, 1,499,146 cases of diarrhoea were reported among children under five years and Nairobi accounted for 136, 028 cases. A research in Nairobi Informal Settlements showed that 25.6% of children living in the Informal Settlement had d...
ABSTRACT Appropriate feeding is an effective strategy in improving the nutrition status of infants and young children. Malnutrition has been a major public health concern with significant negative effects in terms of morbidity, psychological and intellectual under development. Few studies have been conducted in Mpika District to characterize the impact of undernutrtion in infants and young children. Therefore, this study sought to determine the complementary feeding practices, morbidity preva...
ABSTRACT More than half of the world’s refugees reside in non-camp settings, In Nairobi, approximately 55,000 refugees had been registered with United Nations High Commission for Refugees by end of 2012 (UNHCR, 2013).In recent years the UNHCR has documented a trend towards a growing number of refugees and asylum seekers residing in urban areas. Refugees in urban areas often face numerous problems limiting them from accessing the already overstretched government health services. Most urban r...
ABSTRACT Health insurance pools money into a common fund and used for paying for health-care costs of members with a view to sharing risk among the population and avoiding catastrophic health-care expenditure. Motorcycle taxis operators are 30 times more at risk of getting involved in road accident that other road users. As such, victims incur high cost of medical and rehabilitation and more likely to be impoverished. Despite the availability of health insurance schemes, uptake of health insu...
ABSTRACT Global neonatal mortality stands at 22 per 1000 live births and about 41% of deaths in children under 5 years old occur in the neonatal period. In Kenya, neonatal mortality was 22 deaths per 1000 live births between the years 2004 and 2008 and 60 % of infant deaths in Kenya occur during the first month of life. Neonatal sepsis is the leading cause (15%) of all neonatal deaths worldwide. Umbilical infections are an important cause of neonatal morbidity and mortality in developing coun...
ABSTRACT Inadequate access to safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene constitutes a serious global threat to health accounting for approximately 4 billion cases of illness annually. Children under five years in the developing world are most affected, where nearly 1.6 million deaths are recorded annually due to diarrhea alone. This accounts for 15% of all deaths among under fives. Poor sanitation and hygiene practices are among the main factors associated with sanitary diseases. The purpos...
ABSTRACT Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) infection poses a grave public health problem worldwide. Over two billion people are infected and an estimated 387 million of these suffering from chronic HBV infection, with a rate of ten million new carriers each year. Another one million die annually. About 90% of these cases live in developing countries with half of Kenya’s population being estimated to be infected by HBV by the age of 30-40. Health care workers are among the most vulnerable groups to ac...
ABSTRACT Access to Health care by the elderly can be defined as the ability of the aged to get the required medical care from the health service providers when they need it. It’s a comprehensive measurement of access to health care that requires a systematic assessment of physical, financial and socio-psychological access to services. These are further defined into three basic indicators: availability, affordability and acceptability. The proportion of the elderly is increasing rapidly in K...
ABSTRACT Globally, the reported attrition rates of Community Health Workers (CHWs) vary between 3.2% and 77% with high rates being associated with volunteer CHWs. In Kenya, retention rate is estimated at 67% while in Makueni it varies between 50% and 98%. The success of community programmes is often hampered by low retention rates which affects the sustainability of interventions and increases training costs, since it needs continuous replacement which makes the programme difficult to manage....
ABSTRACT Malnutrition, also defined as bad nutrition, is a serious public-health problem that has been linked to a substantial increase in the risk of mortality and morbidity among the affected populations. A large proportion of malnourished children are not enrolled in the treatment program as expected. The objective was to examine the factors that determine use of the Integrated Management of Acute Malnutrition services for children less than five years by caregivers within Embakas...
ABSTRACT Malnutrition has been recognized as a common problem among the elderly persons and is associated with certain diseases and impaired functioning, but less is known about its relationship with nutrition intake and nutritional care among the elderly residents. This study determined the association of functionality and nutritional status of the Institutionalized elderly and compared with that of the elderly living with their family or community members. It also compared the functionality...
Abstract Flooding is one of the most widespread of climatic hazards that continues to pose serious multiple threats to public health. Globally, efforts to combat it have shifted towards long-term commitment to capacity building and broad based community involvement in flood risk interventions. In Kenya, the ability of local people to resist the impact of disasters has not been given adequate attention. This was descriptive cross sectional study and the objectives were to explore existing trad...
ABSTRACT Over the world, hospitals have suffered severe damage as a result of natural and anthropogenic disasters leading to the partial or total collapse of the structures and interruption of the health services urgently needed by the victims of the event. During the disaster strike, hospitals are confronted with a large number of casualties exceeding their capacity to cope. Despite the situation, many governments have paid less attention to disaster preparedness in health facilities. Hospit...
ABSTRACT Malaria causes immeasurable human suffering in the tropics and the sub tropical areas. The disease is a leading cause for both mortality and morbidity with an estimated 300-600 million people being infected with malaria every year in the world. The World health Organization estimates that 90% of malaria deaths occur in Sub Saharan Africa. Insecticide Treated Nets (ITN) are a cost effective malaria control tool but coverage data has often showed that the majority of Sub Saharan countr...