Ethnic differences in the incidence of the sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) in Victoria, Australia 1985-1989.
In order to describe ethnic differences in the incidence of the sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) records of all livebirths in the State of Victoria, Australia, 1985-1989, excluding those who died in the first month of life, were linked to death certificates. Cases were defined as infants dying with a diagnosis of SIDS between 1 month and 1 year of age (n = 601) from the cohort of 308,052 neonatal survivors. Ethnicity was defined by the mother's country of birth. The SIDS incidence was 2.04/1000 in infants of Australian-born mothers. The relative risk of SIDS was 0.28 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.15, 0.55) in infants whose mothers had been born in Southern Europe and 0.48 (95% CI 0.29, 0.78) in infants whose mothers had been born in Asia. SIDS in infants of Australian-born mothers was associated with low maternal age, high parity, marital status other than married, male sex, multiple birth, low birthweight and preterm birth. After adjustment for those factors in a case-control analysis using a logistic regression model the adjusted odds ratio for SIDS was 0.34 (95% CI 0.17, 0.69) comparing infants whose mothers were born in Southern Europe with infants of Australian-born mothers, and 0.60 (95% CI 0.35, 1.04) for infants whose mothers were born in Asia, compared with infants of the Australian-born. Thus there are substantial ethnic differences in SIDS which are not explained by the classic social and perinatal risk factors.
Kilkenny
M
M
Perinatal Data Collection Unit, Centre for the Study of Mothers' and Children's Health, Victoria, Australia.
Lumley
J
J
D000328:Adult; D001724:Birth Weight; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D005865:Gestational Age; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D008423:Maternal Age; D010298:Parity; D012307:Risk Factors; D013398:Sudden Infant Death / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000209:etiology; D014739:Victoria / Q000453:epidemiology