Modeling diarrhea disease in children less than 5 years old.

Purpose: Identification of the temporal pattern of diarrhea disease in children less than 5 years of age in Rio de Janeiro City (1995-1998) to provide support for decisions about prevention and control of the disease.

Methods: The weekly counts of hospitalizations and deaths due to diarrhea disease were analyzed separately. An initial generalized linear model (GLM) was derived using variables related to weather and month.