The Nouna Health and Demographic Surveillance System (HDSS) is located in rural Burkina Faso and has existed since 1992. Currently, it has about 78,000 inhabitants. It is a member of the International Network for the Demographic Evaluation of Populations and Their Health in Developing Countries (INDEPTH), a global network of members who conducts longitudinal health and demographic evaluation of populations in low- and middle-income countries. The health facilities consist of one hospital and 13 basic health centres (locally known as CSPS). The Nouna HDSS has been used as a sampling frame for numerous studies in the fields of clinical research, epidemiology, health economics, and health systems research. In this paper we review some of the main findings, and we describe the effects that almost 20 years of health research activities have shown in the population in general and in terms of the perception, economic implications, and other indicators. Longitudinal data analyses show that childhood, as well as overall mortality, has significantly decreased over the observation period 1993–2007. The under-five mortality rate dropped from about 40 per 1,000 person-years in the mid-1990s to below 30 per 1,000 in 2007. Further efforts are needed to meet goal four of the Millennium Development Goals, which is to reduce the under-five mortality rate by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015.

Studies suggest that there is an association between weather patterns and ischemic stroke risk. Exposure to a sudden decrease in temperature may increase stroke risk through altering blood viscosity and/or by triggering infections. We investigated the association between ischemic stroke risk and change in temperature. We used a case-crossover study design with 303 consecutive patients admitted to Heidelberg University, Department of Neurology over a one and a half year period (Aug 1998-Jan 2000). We used one day before stroke as the hazard (case) period matched to two control periods 2-7 days before and after stroke onset and took both ambient maximum temperature and the 24-hour difference in maximum temperature as exposure. There was no risk associated with ambient maximum temperature at all lag times and in all subgroup analyses. For the 24-hour difference, large changes in temperature (>5 degrees C) were associated with an increased risk of acute ischemic stroke regardless of whether the change was negative or positive. The odds ratio for temperature increases >5 degrees C compared to no change in temperature was 2.0 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.7-5.9) at a lag time of 3 days. We found no relevant relation between temperature and stroke risk. The results suggest that the risk of ischemic stroke may increase with large day-to-day variations upwards or downwards in temperature.

No abstract

A malaria survey of the entire population of a village in Western Burkina Faso (n=1,561) was conducted to assess malaria endemicity. The study population was examined for symptoms characteristic of malaria including fever, anaemia, splenomegaly and parasites present in thick blood films. In the overall study population, the prevalence of Plasmodium spp. infection by microscopic examination of thick blood films was 79.0% (1,233/1,561). In a subcohort with 201 individuals, PCR techniques found a prevalence rate for all Plasmodium spp. of 92.0% (185/201), while microscopy found one of 80.6% (162/201). A combination of both methods gives a rate of 95.5% (192/201). Though univariate logistic analyses of elevated body temperature, anaemia, splenomegaly and age showed them all to be predictors of or risk factors for an infection, only elevated body temperature and age were predictors in multivariate logistic analysis. However, the symptom of splenomegaly did show a highly significant association with infection by multiple species of Plasmodium.