Morbidity in Kenyan Children under the age of 5
By Reina Carissa & Akshay Srivastava, Saint Peter’s University (2021)
Kenya’s population has doubled over the last 35 years, with the majority of the population residing in a few of the big counties in Kenya. According to the UN, Kenya’s population is projected to grow by around 1 million per year — 3,000 people every day — over the next 40 years and will reach around 85 million by 2050.
How will this rapid population growth affect Kenya’s struggling health system? According to 2017 data, there is only one doctor for every 10,000 people, and public healthcare workers often work in conditions where they are overloaded and under-resourced, with limited growth opportunities.
Furthermore, Kenya has been struggling to provide adequate efforts towards addressing the social determinants leading to poor health outcomes, such as unsafe water and sanitation, unhealthy urbanization, gender inequality, and low education. This means that even if a patient can access care in a health facility, they end up returning to the same environment which is likely to have led to their poor health. We, therefore, aimed to estimate the prevalence of morbidity in young children under the age of 5 in different counties in Kenya.
We investigate the data collected for morbidity for patients under the age of 5 in the year 2013. We seek to investigate the following questions:
- Which county is most affected by the different causes of morbidity for patients under the age of 5?
- What is the number one cause of morbidity in Kenya for patients under the age of 5?
For clarity, we selected the top 10 counties of the most populous counties with the most patients.
One of the leading causes of morbidity in Kenyan children under the age of 5 is external harm. This includes accidents — such as fractures and injuries; bites from animals such as snakes, and poisoning. Nairobi tops any other counties at over 18,000 cases in the year 2013. Nairobi is the most populous county in Kenya, with 8% of the country’s population residing in Nairobi compared to any other counties.
Another leading cause of morbidity is caused by infectious diseases, which include pneumonia, urinary tract infections, eye and ear infections, brucellosis, and typhoid fever. The majority of these are hygiene-related or caused by lack of sanitation, which is one of the major concern in Kenya. In Nairobi, the cases reached as high as 110,000 cases in the year 2013, which is by far the leading cause of morbidity in children.
Mental disorders for patients under the age of 5 include those with depression, anxiety, conduct disorders, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), infected with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), and sexually abused children.
Sexual abuse of children is a major global public health and child rights issue, and many studies have identified numerous adverse health, behavioral and social outcomes of children with history of sexual abuse. This includes the detrimental of physical, mental health, and insettings with a generalized HIV epidemic, child sexual abuse is associated with HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. With the fear and threats associated with the abuse, many child survivors rarely report sexual abuse, making it difficult for them to access health, psycho-social and other services that would minimize the negative outcomes of the incident. Out of the reported cases, Nairobi tops the cases of sexual assault on children under the age of 5.
Rather than focusing on preventative measures, the health care system is more focused on reactivate programming. Primary health care is one of the key ways to reduce mortality and morbidity in addition to reducing costs for the patients and the providers, yet it receives the least funding.
With the rapid growth of the population in Kenya, especially in the most populous counties, Kenya needs to make sufficient progress in upgrading its infrastructure and improving its governance, especially in the welfare of its healthcare system. Additionally, a healthy population is one of the key instruments for achieving economic growth.
Health is a human right that requires the state’s stewardship to ensure that whichever factors affect health, directly and indirectly, the health and well-being of the people is always a priority.