National Pediatric Diarrhea Surveillance Study

The major goals of this project are to gain a better understanding of the causes, risk factors, and outcomes of foodborne disease related diarrhea in children under the age of 3 in the United States. The first goal of this proposal is to determine a)the prevalence of specific bacterial, viral and protozoal pathogens in the stools of 1000 healthy children between 6 months and 3 years of age who are representative of U.S. children with respect to geography, family income, and ethnicity,b)the incidence of acute diarrheal illness occurring among these children and c)the incidence of infection with specific bacterial, viral, and protozoal foodborne pathogens associated with clinical illness. The second goal is to characterize the type of gastrointestinal illnesses that occur in these children, the duration, treatment, and sequelae occurring within two months of acute illness. The third goal is to identify risk factors for diarrheal illness and infection with specific foodborne pathogens in these children. Risk factors to be studied include consumer practices related to food (and water) purchasing, handling, storage, and cooking in the home. This study we will obtain unique data on the causes and outcomes of diarrheal disease in young children in relation to foodborne pathogens. Consumer data will define potential sites and routes of contamination within the home environment. These data will be of great value in understanding foodborne disease in relation to agricultural products in a vulnerable section of the population that is thoroughly under investigated.