The determinants of infant and child morbidity in Lagos, Nigeria

Analysis of the structure of real morbidity among children in Lagos, Nigeria, reveals that the leading diseases were of hygienic, nutritional and perinatal origin. These diseases were highly concentrated in infancy and early childhood; in the case of the former, the concentration was greater among boys than girls. During the 1970s, a decline is noticed in the frequency of infective and parasitic diseases particularly among male infants. Simultaneously, a slightly rising trend of diseases related to birth complications and perinatal nature afflicting predominantly early infancy occurred, off-setting, to some extent, the effect of the diminishing trend in infective diseases. The rising trend of perinatal diseases should be seen in conjunction with a likely increase in gravidity of women and the resultant increase of pregnancies and birth complications, which affected the health of the mother as well as that of the child. The findings seem to suggest that although both medical and non-medical factors contributed to the change in morbidity pattern in the decade 1968-1978, the role of factors of socio-economic nature was significant. The implication is that without socio-economic epidemiology, biomedical epidemiology could make a limited contribution to the reduction of morbidity.