Early childhood pneumonia in Aborigines of Bourke, New South Wales.
We carried out a retrospective survey of all children born in the district of Bourke , New South Wales, over a three-year period to determine the frequency of lobar pneumonia in the first three years of life. Although more non-Aboriginal children (167) than Aboriginal children (103) were born during this period, there was a striking difference between these groups in the frequency of pneumonia. Twenty-six (25.2%) Aboriginal children had one or more episodes of lobar pneumonia, compared with only five (3%) non-Aboriginal children born during the same period. Characteristic features of the disease in the Aboriginal children included a high rate of recurrent pneumonia (35%), frequent involvement of the upper lobe of the right lung (77%), and often a family history of pneumonia in early childhood. Of those with siblings, 39% of the affected infants had siblings who had suffered from pneumonia in early childhood. No perinatal factors which correlated with the subsequent development of lobar pneumonia could be identified. However, a greater proportion of the affected than of the non-affected children lived in substandard housing conditions.
D001315:Australia; D005006:Ethnicity; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D011018:Pneumonia, Pneumococcal / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000235:genetics; D012008:Recurrence; D012111:Residence Characteristics; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D000095283:Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples