Neighbourhood child population density as a proxy measure for exposure to respiratory infections in the first year of life: A validation study

Lupatsch, Judith; Kreis, Christian; Korten, Insa; Latzin, Philipp; Frey, Urs; Kuehni, Claudia E.; Spycher, Ben D.

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0203743

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 24 publications

(29 reference statements)

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“…Data on post-infancy children are limited. Previous studies on this subject ( 6 – 30 ) mostly included young (≤7 years) ( 6 , 11 , 12 , 14 , 18 ) or very young (≤3 years) children ( 7 , 9 , 10 , 15 – 17 , 19 , 22 – 26 , 28 ); besides, half of them were published >10 years ago ( Supplementary Table 1 ). Some of these studies (5/25) only used doctor's files or national health registries ( 7 , 15 , 20 , 21 , 29 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Respiratory Symptoms in Post-infancy Children. A Dutch Pediatric Cohort Study

Vries

Hout²

2020

Front. Pediatr.

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Aim: To study the pattern of respiratory symptoms in children in the general population.Method: We followed a cohort of children for up to 2 years through parents completing weekly online questionnaires in the Child-Is-Ill study (“Kind-en-Ziekmeting” in Dutch); the study was running 2012–2015. Inclusion criteria were “an ordinary child” (according to the parents) and <18 years old at inclusion. We especially encouraged participation of post-infancy children. Age at inclusion, sex, smoking exposure, allergy in the family, and frequent infections in the family were noted. Pearson's correlation, principal component analysis, latent class analysis, latent profile analysis, linear regression, and linear mixed effects regression were used in the statistical analyses.Results: Data were collected on 55,524 childweeks in 755 children (50% girls; median age, 7 years; interquartile range, 4–11 years, 97% ≥2 years at inclusion), with reported symptom(s) in 8,425 childweeks (15%), leading to school absenteeism in 25%, doctor's visits in 12%, and parental sick leave in 8%; symptoms lasting ≥3 weeks were rare (2% of episodes). Linear mixed effects regression showed significant, but only limited, effects of season on the proportion of “symptom(s) reported” per individual child. Only runny nose showed a significant, but very small, age effect. However, the variability between the children was considerable. There were no obvious subgroups of children with specific symptom combinations.Conclusion: In any randomly chosen week, the vast majority of children (85%) in our—mainly—post-infancy cohort derived from the general population did not have any symptom, even in the younger age group, even in winter. The children showed considerable variability; no clear subgroups of symptom patterns could be identified, underlining the difficult position of healthcare providers. These results support our opinion that post-infancy children in the general population should not be evaluated as if they are infants when they have recurrent respiratory symptoms. If they clearly deviate from the above-described most common pattern, it is wise to keep an eye on potential, maybe even rare, serious underlying causes.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Respiratory Symptoms in Post-infancy Children. A Dutch Pediatric Cohort Study

Vries

Hout²

2020

Front. Pediatr.

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“…Unfortunately, there was no study that evaluated the prevalence of respiratory infections and the level of population density in the area of residents. However, Lupatsch et al [39] have reported that neighbourhood child density was a poor proxy for exposure to infections in infancy.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Direct and Indirect Costs of Non-surgical Treatment for Acute Tonsillitis in Children in Southeast Nigeria

Ughasoro

Akpeh

Echendu

et al. 2021

PharmacoEconomics Open

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Background Acute tonsillitis has become one of the main reasons why children visit healthcare facilities in Nigeria. Presently, there is no information on the costs of its treatment, and this study aimed at determining these costs. Methods The study was conducted in two hospitals located in southeast Nigeria. The information was obtained in two ways: (1) retrospectively from the medical records of children treated for acute tonsillitis over a period of 5 years and (2) cross-sectionally from children who presented with complaints of acute tonsillitis over a period of 7 months. The information obtained was the costs of self-medication and hospital treatment, and the payment mechanisms used to settle these costs. The human capital method approach was used to estimate the indirect cost (loss in productivity) from the caregivers' absenteeism from work. Results The mean costs of self-medication and hospital treatment for acute tonsillitis in children were €3.85 and €13.48, respectively. The indirect cost was €11.31. The mean total cost of treatment of acute tonsillitis was €23.80. The proportion of households that suffered catastrophic health expenditure (CHE) from the treatment of acute tonsillitis was 55 (55%). CHE was highest [22 (91.7%)] in the lowest socio-economic quartile compared to households in the highest quartile [4 (16.7%)], and the difference was statistically significant (p = 0.02). Of the 72 participants whose payment mechanisms were documented, the proportion who paid out of pocket was 53 (73.6%), and 19 (26.4%) used the National Health Insurance Scheme. Conclusion The costs of treatment for children with acute tonsillitis were high, and most of these costs were settled out-ofpocket. The costs for laboratory investigations, drugs, and productivity loss contributed to these high costs. There is a need to cover the costs of non-surgical treatment of acute tonsillitis in social health insurance and improve efforts to increase the coverage of the health insurance scheme.

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Neighbourhood child population density as a proxy measure for exposure to respiratory infections in the first year of life: A validation study

Cited by 2 publications

References 24 publications

Respiratory Symptoms in Post-infancy Children. A Dutch Pediatric Cohort Study

Respiratory Symptoms in Post-infancy Children. A Dutch Pediatric Cohort Study

Direct and Indirect Costs of Non-surgical Treatment for Acute Tonsillitis in Children in Southeast Nigeria

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