Short- and Long-term Risk of Infections as a Function of Group Child Care Attendance

Abstract

To determine whether the frequency of infections during the first 8 years of life varies according to age at initiation and type of group child care (GCC).

First-year Daycare and Incidence of Acute Gastroenteritis

“…7,15,16,24 Depending on age at entry, the increase in AGE incidence among daycare attendees was observed in our study during the first or first and second year only. The seasonal peak during winter months suggests an important contribution of rotavirus and norovirus to the increased AGE incidence for first-year daycare attendees.…”

“…Our findings are in line with results from 2 other prospective cohort studies that assessed direct and long-term effects of early daycare on AGE occurrence. Côté et al 15 did not find a difference in cumulative parentreported AGE incidence in the first 8 years of life between children attending daycare before ages 2.5 years and those not attending daycare. Zutavern et al 8 found an increased risk, based on parental questionnaires, of several infections, including AGE, in the first years of life for children who entered daycare before 2 years of age, and observed that this risk disappeared or even reversed from the age of 4 years on.…”

“…3,5,9,[11][12][13][14] Although it is known that early daycare attendance is associated with an increased incidence and economic burden of AGE, it has also been suggested that early daycare may offer relative protection from AGE when children enter primary school. 8,15,16 The duration and magnitude of such opposite effects of early daycare exposure, however, remain unclear, and consequently the cumulative impact of daycare attendance on AGE disease burden during childhood also remains unclear.…”

Canadian evidence on ten years of universal preschool policies: The good and the bad

“…For the 0-2 year-olds parent-reported measures such as "never had a nose/throat/ear infection" are used. These are benign health outcomes and this life experience may have reinforce their immunitary system and their long term health (Ball et al 2002;Lu et al 2004;Côté et al 2010). For children aged 2 to 3 the behaviour of the child is measured using an emotional anxiety score, a physical aggression score, and a separation anxiety score, each based on a serie of parent-reported measures.…”

Risk Factors for Recurrent Acute Otitis Media and Chronic Otitis Media with Effusion in Childhood

“…It is postulated that the risk is proportional to the number of "companions" the children are in contact with [5,6]. Large group child care centers increase otitis media incidence and were defined as those in which professional educators provided care for up to 10 groups of 8-12 children in the same setting [54]. A possible mechanism is related to the greater number of URTI presented by children that are exposed to many other children [55].…”