Health and Disease Profile of Children in Remote Rural Pockets of Himachal Pradesh, With a Look-Out for Uncommon and Rare Diseases- A Collage of Health Camp Based Cross Sectional Study

Abstract

BACKGROUND Health camp organization is an established mode of health care delivery to unreached rural population deprived of specialist care. Himachal Pradesh is a hilly area with difficult to travel geographical terrain. Our institute organized multispecialty health camps in remote rural pockets of Himachal Pradesh including paediatrician's services. METHODS Health status and disease profile of children who attended these camps were entered in a predesigned proforma. Haemoglobin estimation was done on the spot. Data of 472 children attending 20 such camps were analysed. RESULTS 7.84 % children came for paediatric consultation from 6019 patients who attended these camps. Maximum number of patients were in age group of 6-12 years. 25.6 % children had a weight for age < 3 rd percentile and an almost a similar number of 25.4 % had height less than <3 rd percentile for age, suggestive of malnutrition and short stature respectively. 78.8 % children had anaemia of varying degree. 36.7 % children were brought with long duration of illness lasting for more than one year and another 5.51% had problems since birth. The most common presenting complaint was pain abdomen with gastrointestinal tract, the most commonly involved system. Children suffering with uncommon & rare diseases, various Syndromes and CNS diseases were also found hidden in these rural pockets without any diagnostic or therapeutic help. CONCLUSIONS The study highlights a delayed health care seeking behaviour in rural children and parents. Anaemia is still a big problem in spite of many health programs in place for decades. Protein energy malnutrition is prevalent, and it is manifesting in the form of stunting in almost 25% of attended child population. A paediatrician-oriented specialist care for early diagnosis and management of these children is the need of hour. A lookout for uncommon diseases is required to address this issue in India to keep pace with global health care approach.