Correlation analysis between drought and outpatient visits for diarrhea in children aged 0-6 in Lanzhou city and Tianshui city, Gansu Province

Abstract

In this study, the data of pediatric diarrhea clinic of Gansu Provincial Maternal and Child Health Hospital from January 1, 2014 to December 31, 2018 and Tianshui First Hospital from January 1, 2015 to December 31, 2018 were collected. Standardized precipitation index (SPI) and meteorological drought composite index (MCI) were used as drought indicators. Quasi-Poisson generalized additive model was used to analyze the correlation between drought and pediatric diarrhea outpatient visits. During the study period, the dry days in Lanzhou city and Tianshui city were 298 and 379 days according to SPI-1, 303 and 398 days according to MCI, respectively. There were 57 147 and 18 703 cases of diarrhea in children aged 0-6 years in Gansu Provincial Maternal and Child Health Hospital and Tianshui First Hospital, respectively. MCI and SPI (SPI-1) based on monthly precipitation were negatively correlated with the number of pediatric diarrhea outpatients. Compared with the non-drought period, SPI-1 showed the strongest correlation between middle drought and pediatric diarrhea outpatients, with an increase of 13.4% (95%CI: 7.9%-19.3%) and 20.0% (95%CI: 12.7%-27.8%) in Lanzhou city and Tianshui city, respectively. According to MCI, the outpatients with diarrhea in Tianshui children increased by 60.5% (95%CI: 3.4%-149.0%) due to extreme drought.