STUDY OF HIGH RISK CHILDREN UNDERFIVE YEARS AGE IN RURAL COMMUNITY OF HARYANA

Under five children are relatively more vulnerable to high morbidity, disability and mortality because of their young age & peculiar biological growth and development. Within this special group certain children also called “high risk” group are more at special risk of diseases, its complications and death due to their biological makeup, their environment or both. As per UNICEF report, Under five children in India had mortality rate 56. To reduce this morbidity & mortality among under 5, it was necessary to delineate the prevalence of high risk children under five years age and types of risk factors they had, the present study was undertaken to delineate these high risk children under five years age. The study was undertaken to estimate the prevalence of high risk children under five years age among rural area community and distribution of these risk factors singly or in combinations among high risk group children. The study was undertaken among children under five years of age living in rural area of primary health centre Amarpur block of Palwal district, Haryana, which is the field practice area of Dept. of Community Medicine, Gold Field Inst. of Medical Sciences and Research. A minimum sample of 300 completed interviews was planned using representative probabilities to population size (PPS) sampling method which ensured equal probability for every eligible member. A total 370 houses were listed as sample to cater for non-response Data listing was obtained from Census Office from recent census of 2011 data. The face to face interviews were undertaken in homes using fully structured, pretested interview schedule. Data were entered into computer on excel sheet and analyzed using SPSS software package (Ver 22.0). Out of 340 children under five studied 176 were identified as high risk group, constituting prevalence of 51.8%. Major risk factors delineated were Malnutrition(30.0%), birth spacing less than two years (28.5%), repeated infections (16.2%),, mother active economically (8.2%), low birth weight (7.1%)birth order 5 th or more (6.2%), father being chronic alcoholic (3.8%), parental deprivation(3.2%), breast feeding to