Impact of rural-urban migration on childhood risk of Acute Respiratory Infection (ARI)

Although the implications of rural-urban migration for socio-economic development are of long-standing interest to social scientists, relatively little is known about the effect of migration on the health of the most vulnerable members of migrants' families –young children under 5 years of age. This study uses a large nationally representative dataset from Bangladesh (Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey- (BDHS) 2004) to examine whether rural-urban migrant children are more likely to suffer from Acute Respiratory Infections (ARI) than their non-migrant peers (urban non migrants and rural non migrants). Even after controlling for potential confounders such as poverty, use of solid fuels, maternal malnourishment, child malnourishment, maternal education and maternal age rural-urban migrant children are significantly more likely to suffer from ARI than non migrant children (OR: 1.30; 95% C.I. [1.035---1.6445]). Interestingly there is no difference in childhood ARI risk between the two non-migrant groups (rural no-migrants and urban non-migrants) once adjustments are made for household poverty and use of sold fuels. Other potential confounders relating to social networks such as access to health care, knowledge about ARI prevention may help further explain this increased risk but the absence of specific data on these factors prevent any definitive conclusion. These results suggest we need to have much better information on social networks, health care access and knowledge about prevention to better understand the risk environment of childhood ARI. Moreover couples may want to avoid migration when their children's age is less than five years as they have a high risk of suffering from ARI.