Talk:Diarrhea in developing regions

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Diarrhea in Developing Regions/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: 1ST7 (talk · contribs) 08:06, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi there, I'll review this article. Initial comments should hopefully be posted tomorrow. --1ST7 (talk) 08:06, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Comments from lesion

• For now, I linked this article from Diarrhea#Epidemiology. I note that the article has been nominated to be merged into the parent article.
• I integrated some of the see also links into the article body, per the MEDMOS
• Per naming conventions need to sentence case, so I renamed it Diarrhea in developing regions
• For a medical article to be ready for a good article nomination, ideally all the sources would conform to wp:MEDRS, and this would unfortunately involve some work to remove the primary sources and if possible find secondary sources instead. Lesion (talk) 12:14, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for this but it overlaps with other content

This article was created an then immediately nominated for GA review. I think this review should pause pending some concerns being addressed.

This article, "Diarrhea in developing regions", seems to have been created without regard for the information which already exists in Diarrhea and Gastroenteritis. Any overlapping content should be merged to one article or the other. It might be the case that 80% of this article would overlaps with gastroenteritis, so before doing a review, this needs to sorted and either one or both articles are likely to go through major reform.

I think before reviewing much more it would be best if the author User:Jpoles1 would state why it is best to have a new article rather than develop the existing articles, and explain what difference in focus "gastroenteritis" and "diarrhea in developing regions" should have. Most of the content of this article is duplicating gastroenteritis. Health information almost certainly should go into "gastroenteritis", because that is the disease article. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:21, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Though I understand your concerns regarding the novelty of this article, User:Bluerasberry, I strongly believe that they are unfounded. Before making claims of duplication of content, I would suggest that you examine the article's contextualization of the issue. While gastroenteritis examines this class of diseases from a global perspective, it does little to inform the reader about the issue in the context of developing countries where this issue is most dire and most relevant. Even in the first few paragraphs, you will note a significant divergence in information being preesented. In developing countries, for example, data shows that the major pathogens of interest globally ("Viruses (particularly rotavirus) and the bacteria Escherichia coli and Campylobacter species are the primary causes of gastroenteritis") are different than those identified to be most active in developing nations ("The infectious agents that predominate the majority of cases in developing nations are Rotavirus, E coli, Shigella. and Cryptosporidium."). Indeed, these differences between a global approach to diarrheal disease and one focused on developing nations extend beyond pathogens of interest, to the populations most impacted, where the problem arises, and how best to develop solutions for the issue.

That said, the mission statement for Wikipedia "is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content and to disseminate it effectively and globally." The goal of this article is to develop a body of knowledge regarding this issue specifically in the developing world, in order to raise awareness of the issues, tackle some of the social obstacles to improving diarrheal disease healthcare in developing nations, and to start a dialog about how best to abate the devastation that this disease class wreaks on developing nations, communities and families.

The question of adding my content onto that of another articles has arisen before, and after lengthy discussion, it was decided that this work would stand better on its own given the current articles on the issue. While both diarrhea and gastroenteritis take a fairly medical tone and approach to the issue, this page utilizes an approach based upon sociology, economics and capabilities, which would be inappropriate and out of context for the other two articles.

Jpoles1 (talk) 15:55, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

In the future new users are always welcome to propose their projects and get feedback at WP:WikiProject Medicine. Chatting for 5 minutes can save hours of work and people can expect speedy responses there to any health article question. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:22, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Wait - User:Jpoles1 did get a lot of feedback and advice on your userpage. Jpoles1, did you read any of the advice at User talk:Jpoles1? What happened? You never responded to any of it. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:25, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

I understand that someone did inquire about this issue on WTMED relatively recently: [1]. One of the problems with having such a fast turnover before archiving of messages is that things get missed by many users. I am yet to think of a way to address this... Lesion (talk) 15:28, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Agree that there is a great deal of overlap. Raised concerns when this article was proposed. It is mostly duplication of content. All the primary sources need to be removed and the rest merged. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 11:53, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Ping Graham

It is most unfortunate, considering the backlog at WP:GAN, that a student essay has gone from sandbox to GAN so quickly, bypassing peer review. User:GrahamColm is a Wikipedian most versed in this area, having written several FAs on poop-related topics. Please consult him, and please withdraw this from GA, as it is taking resources away from other articles better prepared and awaiting review. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:02, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

I received a notification of this discussion on my phone on my home from work. I have read the article and while it is a worthy student essay, it is not encyclopaedic in tone and as well as the editorialisng there are errors. The discussion on rotavirus immediately grabbed my attention. It's about 20 years out of date and is sourced to a 1985 paper by de Zoysa and Feachem. This publication was important and influential at the time but has long been superseded. There has been major progress in prevention of rotaviral diarrhoea in the past 15 or so years, which the article completely ignores. It has also been known for some time that improved social conditions do little to control the incidence and prevalence of viral gastroenteritis and this is why the WHO, many years ago, supported vaccine development. I'm not convinced that there is much here – once it has been updated and the editorial comments removed – that is not already covered in our other articles which include Gastroenteritis, Rotavirus and Rotavirus vaccine. While I applaud the contributor's enthusiasm for a subject that has been the main thrust of my research in real life, I think the salient points of this article should be merged with Gastroenteritis if they are not already covered. I don't think this contribution is worthy of a stand alone article and certainly not a GA. Graham Colm (talk) 20:29, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Agree with Graham. Article does not follow WP:MEDMOS. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 12:41, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Comment from reviewer

As there appears to be a dispute surrounding this article and whether or not it should be merged, and because the nominator has withdrawn it from WP:GAN, I am discontinuing this review for now. I'm sorry, and I hope everything gets sorted out. --1ST7 (talk) 01:24, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Page review

After reading the article and discussion on the talk page about the content and tone of this article, I'd like to offer a few comments. First of all, the article covers many key factors that suggest a link between poverty and diarrheal disease. However, the article focused mainly on diarrheal disease in children and did not address diarrheal disease in adults. Even if the prevalence is much higher in children, this article should cover a wider range of ages. I agree that the source from 1985 should be removed and the content should be updated to reflect current medical information. I also agree that at some points the page reads more like an essay than an encyclopedia entry. Removing summary statements and analysis would make the tone more complaint with WP:MOS. Statements such as "It is known that…" need to be removed to make the article more accessible to a general audience. The article is successful in synthesizing a variety of viewpoints. I'm not sure what information from this article overlaps with other articles, but because the factors influencing diarrhea and treatments of diarrhea are different in developing regions, I would argue that this content deserves its own page. Keep up the good work! Khatchell (talk) 21:12, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes but factors effecting rate of diarrhea in the developing world have been discussed in other articles.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 10:05, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Review of article

I agree with Khatchell that this article deserves its own page because it focuses more on the social consequences of diarrhea, rather than the clinical side. I also agree that this article sounds more like an essay than an encyclopedia, and that some sentences need to be removed. Also, I feel that because the article seems to focus a lot on children, changing the title to include children, or including more information on adults would make this article stronger. The article also has a lot of strongly worded beginnings, so attributing to references may help provide a more neutral POV. This may be a minor detail, but the section on Children and diarrhea section was a little difficult to read because of the amount of numbers there was, so making that section easier to see in a table, or decreasing the amount of numbers and percentages may be helpful to the reader. Overall, I feel that this article is strong enough to be its own page, and that Jpoles1 did a great job writing this article! Momo137 (talk) 06:10, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

This is like saying that the article on gastroenteritis is really about gastroenteritis is the developed world. This of course is false. Renaming all are articles disease X in developing regions and disease X in developed regions would be a disaster. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 09:59, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Though I do agree that this would be not be an effective means of writing for Wikipedia, I do not believe that this argument applies in this case. When you have a disease which has such a profound impact on developing regions, and when there is a body of content that approaches the issue from a social/economic and capabilities standpoint which is not appropriate for incorporation into a medically oriented article like gastroenteritis, it is important to discuss it elsewhere.

Jpoles1 (talk) 17:36, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

After reading the gastroenteritis, diarrhea, and diarrhea in developing regions articles, I believe this article is substantively different in content to justify an independent page. The discussion of diarrhea in developing regions in the other articles is very brief. Considering the catastrophically high of diarrhea mortality, especially among children, the existence of this article is more than justified. If you look at the articles on AIDS, you will see that there is one specifically on HIV/AIDS in Africa. The talk page for that article includes a vigorous debate, but it is not about the validity of having an article about the manifestation of HIV/AIDS in Africa specifically. So there is a precedence for having this sort of page. Would it be so bad if every cause of massive mortality in the developing world had its own Wikipedia page? Who would that harm? And more importantly, would that not possibly make some difference in the lives of people in the developing world. It is important that Wikipedia not have a Eurocentric bias, especially when it comes to diarrhea. Mankad (talk) 22:50, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

The article on gastroenteritis mades 9 mentions to the developing world and have a fair bit of discussion on the condition there. We could have an article on diarrhea by country. The issue is that instead of trying to give a good overview we would then have hundreds of out of date poorly referenced articles that will be impossible to keep correct. Anyway I have been slowly trimming the primary research from this one. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 00:05, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Coming back to the question of merger with main article on diarrhoea

I have just added content to the main article on diarrhoea (with respect to developing countries) only to find out right at the bottom of the article the link to this other article which may be quite good (I haven't had time to read it in detail yet). I agree with Doc James that it should be merged with the other article, or at the very least the other article should very clearly have links (several) to the article about developing countries diahrroea, or make it clear that it is only on diarrhoea in non-developing countries. But really, with such a disease it does not make sense to split it. Have there been other precedences for splitting it? Should we now also split the page on helminthiasis as it affects people in developing countries totally differently to people in developed countries? And the same with menstrual hygiene management? Down syndrom? All these are things that affect people in different regions of the world differently and yet we don't create separate articles for it. So let's do the merger. Also another argument is this: if people from developed countries read on the Wikipedia page on diarrhoea and then see the content for developing countries, it will raise their awareness that this is a serious condition for so many people in the world - thus bringing the "two worlds" closer together. EvM-Susana (talk) 22:41, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

This should really be merged back into the main article on diarrhea. I agree the last think we need is every article about every disease to be split into two.

This content is really about infectious diarrhea rather than diarrhea generally. More work will need to be done. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:41, 11 January 2015 (UTC)