Acute diarrheal disease constitutes a public health problem in children under 5 years of age; mainly in developing countries. Every year, diarrhea causes considerable infant morbidity, reporting around 1 700 million cases, representing the second leading cause of mortality with approximately 525 000 deaths each year.In Panama, acute diarrheal disease is placed among the main causes of infant mortality and morbidity with 24.3 deaths for every 100 000 children under 5 years of age and with 94 564 cases registered for 2017. In our country, we do not have recent studies on the main risk factors that impact on the development of acute diarrheal disease. This, coupled with the fact that there are social factors that promote its appearance, makes it vital to seek preventive measures that decrease the incidence of this disease.