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Magnitude and impact of diarrheal diseases
Richard L Guerrant1, Margaret Kosek, Sean Moore
1Department of Medicine, Division of Geographic and International Medicine, University of Virginia School of Medicine, Charlottesville, VA 22908, USA. RLG9A@hscmail.mcc.virginia.edu
Insights
Tropical infectious diseases, particularly diarrheal diseases in early childhood, incur significant, often unmeasured, human and economic costs. Emerging evidence highlights long-term impacts on development and productivity, increasing the burden of poverty-related illnesses.
Area of Science:
- Global Health
- Developmental Pediatrics
- Infectious Diseases
Background:
- Diseases of poverty present substantial, often underestimated, human and economic burdens.
- Tropical infectious diseases, especially diarrheal diseases, disproportionately affect early childhood.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review the high costs associated with diseases of poverty.
- To examine the increasing morbidity of diarrheal diseases.
- To present emerging evidence on the long-term consequences of early childhood diarrhea.
Main Methods:
- Literature review of existing studies on diseases of poverty.
- Analysis of data on diarrhea morbidity and mortality trends.
- Synthesis of recent research on developmental impacts of early childhood infections.
Main Results:
- Diarrheal diseases contribute significantly to the costs of poverty, with increasing morbidity despite declining mortality.
- Early childhood diarrhea has emerging evidence of long-term negative effects on physical growth.
- Cognitive development and overall productivity may be impaired by early-life diarrheal episodes.
Conclusions:
- The long-term consequences of early childhood diarrheal diseases represent a significant, yet often unmeasured, cost.
- Addressing these tropical infections is crucial for mitigating lifelong impairments in human potential and productivity.
- Further research is needed to quantify these costs and inform interventions for diseases of poverty.
Abstract:
Among the increasingly unacceptable costs of the diseases of poverty are the largely unmeasured but potentially huge human and economic long-term costs of common tropical infectious diseases, especially those such as repeated dehydrating and malnourishing diarrheal diseases (and enteric infections, even without overt liquid stools) that are so prevalent in the developmentally critical first year or two of early childhood. We review here the high costs of diseases of poverty, increasing diarrhea morbidity (despite decreasing mortality), and new emerging evidence for long-term consequences of early childhood diarrhea on growth and on physical and cognitive development, effects that may translate into costly impairment of human potential and productivity.