Study on the diarrhea of rural residents and its impact factors in local region in Huaihe River Basin

Objective To investigate and analyze the diarrhea among adult rural residents and the impact factors in 7 counties of Huaihe River Basin.

Methods A number of 3424 adult rural residents at the age of 18-75yrs, with no less than 3-year local living, were chosen from the database of the survey on the exposure parameters and environmental risk factors in 7 counties of Huaihe River Basin from November, 2015 to October, 2018. The current incidence rates of diarrhea were analyzed and the impact factors were modeled by answer tree analysis.

Results A total of 771 adult rural residents reported diarrhea suffering during the ivestigation. The reported rate of diarrhea was 22.5%, the reported incidence rate was 0.606/person/year, and the analyzed average duration of diarrhea was 2.06 d. The mean monthly value of daily maximum temperature and mean monthly rainfall were positively correlated with the diarrhea report rates.The single factor Logistic regression analysis and Tree analysis showed that the ditches and ponds around the household, non-sanitary toilets using, age, drinking, annually family income and the toilets and/or stys around the well were the risk factors for diarrhea reporting (P < 0.05).

Conclusion The incidence of reported diarrhea among rural adult residents in the study areas of Huaihe River Basin was similar to those reported by other surveys in rural China. It was mainly affected by the living environment and living hygiene habits. And the ditches and ponds around the household were the primary risk factor of diarrhea.