Drought and Illness among Young Children in Uganda, 2009-2012

Changing precipitation patterns resulting from climate change are likely to have deleterious effects on health. We examined historical relationships between precipitation and diarrhea, cough, and fever among children aged 0-24 months in Uganda, a drought-prone region. Using data from the Uganda National Panel Survey from 2009 to 2012 (2,324 observations), we specified logistic regression models evaluating the relationships between deviations from annual and 30-day precipitation and caregiver-reported diarrhea, cough, and fever, adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics and including enumeration of area-fixed effects. Nonlinearities were assessed using restricted cubic splines. We observed nonlinear (J-shaped) relationships between deviations from annual precipitation and the three child illness outcomes. These J-shaped relationships represented steep reductions in illness with increasing precipitation at lower levels of rainfall and a leveling off at higher levels, with a small increase at higher levels. We did not find evidence for a relationship between 30-day precipitation and childhood illness. Trends of reduced rainfall in Uganda are likely having negative effects on child health.