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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Eman Mahmmoued Eltahalwy¹, Maissa M. Schawki², Maha M. Ghobashi², and AUC Social Research Center³. (1) Enviromental Health, National Research Center, 230 port saeed street, Cairo, Egypt, (2) Public health Depertament, Cairo University, El kasr Al-Aini Medical school , Public health Depertment, Cairo, Egypt, 2023934594, eeltahalwy1970@yahoo.com, (3) Partnership in Development Research, Americn University in Cairo, 106 Kaser Elini Street, Cairo, Egypt

Introduction Street children is a world phenomenon. It has grown all over the world, and particularly in Egypt. It is certainly not a new social phenomenon, but because of the increasing number of street children, we are under pressure to address it. Objectives: To identify the health conditions of street children in general, Methodology: Two hundred street children were examined and asked about health problems, 45% suffered no problem that required medical care. 53.5% had many health problems, most important problems among them are road accidents (44.9%),violence and beating (14%), and dog bites (11.2%) Children who went to care centers to receive medical care accounted for 53.3%. Children who smoke regularly were 74% with 7.6% of the children experienced drugs (hashish) .31% of the children had practice sexual intercourse and 91.9% of them had genital diseases. Girls formed 48.5% of the study sample and 54.2% actually got pregnant. When asked about their current status, 31.3% said they were actually pregnant during the time of the interview and 12.5% said they did not know if they were pregnant or not. The medical check up revealed that all the children were below the normal weight for their age. 7.5% of the children were handicapped; 73% had low levels of hemoglobin (simple, moderate and severe); 2% had eggs of bilharzias, which means that the disease is active in their bodies and is infectious. Children with parasitic diseases constituted 17% and findings pointed out that 43% suffer high levels of lead.

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