The child group used as a reference system when analysing frequency of morbidity in day-care centres.
Morbidity frequency was analysed among children attending six day-care centres in a suburb of Stockholm, Sweden. Absence due to illness was calculated annually for each child and correlated with each child's own group. Thus a child was classified as "often sick" or "mainly healthy" in relation to the other children in the child's own group, constituting a reference system. In almost every group a "sick third" was found, whose absence due to illness was twice that of the rest of the group. Children from families of lower social standing, those with a relatively large number of siblings and those living in poor social conditions were found to be among those most often reported as sick. In such families, smoking was more commonplace. These parents more often lived in a rented apartment than in a single detached owner house. Multiple linear regression analysis revealed that young mothers and children with several siblings had the strongest correlation with absence due to illness of the proband child. Increasing maternal age revealed improvement vis-à-vis all socioeconomic parameters investigated, reflecting an improvement in standing correlated to less sick children.
Sennerstam
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Sachs Children's Hospital, Karolinska Institute, Outpatient Department, Nynäshamn, Sweden.
D000367:Age Factors; D002648:Child; D002656:Child Day Care Centers; D002675:Child, Preschool; D006801:Humans; D008423:Maternal Age; D009017:Morbidity; D012016:Reference Values; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012923:Social Class; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors