Costs and Economic Burden of Childhood Diarrhea in Uganda (original) (raw)

2023, Research Square (Research Square)

Background: Diarrhea is one of the leading-causes of morbidity and mortality among children under age ve in Uganda. While there is an abundance of literature on disease burden, there is limited available evidence on the costs and economic burden of childhood diarrhea in Uganda. To ll this gap, we estimated the cost of childhood diarrhea in Uganda from a societal perspective. Methods: We used an incidence-based cost-of-illness approach capturing monthly healthcare facility data on staff, medications, capital costs, and hospitalrelated expenditures for childhood diarrhea patients in Uganda. We interviewed caregivers of children with diarrhea at 48 selected healthcare facilities in the public and private (for-pro t and not-for-pro t) sectors. We conducted phone interviews with caregivers 7-14 days post-discharge to capture additional out-ofpocket expenses and associated costs. We also captured caregiver costs related to diarrhea illness including, productivity/time loss, income, food, travel costs and other household characteristics. These costs were then aggregated into direct (medical and non-medical) and indirect costs and estimated by age, gender, type of care (outpatient, inpatient), type of facility, and wealth quintile. The impact of diarrheal disease to households in terms of catastrophic health expenditure was measured.