Abstract:
In low- and middle-income countries, children aged below 5 years frequently suffer from
disease co-occurrence. This study assessed whether the co-occurrence of acute respiratory infection
(ARI), diarrhoea and stunting observed at the child level could also be reflected ecologically. We
considered disease data on 69,579 children (0–59 months) from the 2008, 2013, and 2018 Nigeria
Demographic and Health Surveys using a hierarchical Bayesian spatial shared component model
to separate the state-specific risk of each disease into an underlying disease-overall spatial pattern,
common to the three diseases and a disease-specific spatial pattern. We found that ARI and stunting
were more concentrated in the north-eastern and southern parts of the country, while diarrhoea was
much higher in the northern parts. The disease-general spatial component was greater in the northeastern and southern parts of the country. Identifying and reducing common risk factors to the three
conditions could result in improved child health, particularly in the northeast and south of Nigeria.
