Morbidity Among Tribal Under-Five Children of Tea Garden Areas in a Block of Darjeeling District, West Bengal: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Background: In the developing world, more than half of infant and childhood mortality is related to childhood diseases particularly- acute respiratory infections (ARI) and diarrhoea. The situation is worse among underprivileged population such as tribals and people living in tea garden areas.

Objective: To identify the morbidity pattern and the associated factors among tribal, under five, children living in tea garden areas of Darjeeling district.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in three randomly chosen tea garden areas of a block in Darjeeling District, West Bengal, India from September 2013-February 2014. The collected data was analysed using SPSS software and binary logistic regression was applied to test association between morbidity and other epidemiological correlates.

Results: Morbidity was noted among 74 out of 192 children studied. Major causes of morbidity were- diarrhoea (26%), acute respiratory infections (24.5%) and fever (16.7%). Proportion of underweight children according to their age was 64.4%. Morbidity status was found statistically significant with some factors, like- religion, socio-economic status, immunization status and number of siblings.

Conclusions: There is high prevalence of diarrhoea and ARI associated morbidity in this part of the country.