Follow-up survey on under-five children in Fogera and Mecha districts of Amhara regional state, Ethiopia, 2014

The follow-up surveys were administered between April and July 2014 after completing the baseline survey by the end of March 2014. The aim of the survey was to collect information on under-five children heath status—such as diarrhea, fever, vomiting, constant cough, stomach pain/cramps and skin infections in the preceding two weeks. This data collection process requires multiple successive visits to the households, and each household has been visited every fortnightly for a period of three months to record the health status of the children. For this purpose, one-page child health calendar questionnaire was developed to record information about symptoms of a particular illness; how long the symptoms stay; and what treatment they seek for if any. The data collection was done by health and agriculture extension workers who work in the selected kebeles. Training was given to the enumerators during the field organization for the follow-up household survey. In most cases, the data collectors ask the child’s primary caretaker—usually the mother or another adult woman household member.

Purpose: To examine the longitudinal diarrheal prevalence among under-five children in the study areas.