PURPOSE: This study aimed to determine the prevalence and severity of recurrent wheezing (RW) defined as > or =3 episodes of wheezing, risk factors, and treatments prescribed during the first year of life in Latin American infants. METHODS: In this international, cross-sectional, and community-based study, parents of 12,405 infants from 11 centers in 6 South American countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru, and Uruguay) completed a questionnaire about wheezing and associated risk/protective factors, asthma medications, and the frequency of and indications for the prescription of antibiotics and paracetamol during the first year of life. RESULTS: The prevalence of RW was 16.6% (95% CI 16.0-17.3); of the 12,405 infants, 72.7% (95% CI 70.7-74.6) visited the Emergency Department for wheezing, and 29.7% (27.7-31.7) was admitted. Regarding treatment, 49.1% of RW infants received inhaled corticosteroids, 55.7% oral corticosteroids, 26.3% antileukotrienes, 22.9% antibiotics > or =4 times mainly for common colds, wheezing, and pharyngitis, and 57.5% paracetamol > or =4 times. Tobacco smoking during pregnancy, household income per month <1,000 USD, history of parental asthma, male gender, and nursery school attendance were significant risk factors for higher prevalence and severity of RW, whereas breast-feeding for at least 3 months was a significant protective factor. Pneumonia and admissions for pneumonia were significantly higher in infants with RW as compared to the whole sample (3.5-fold and 3.7-fold, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: RW affects 1.6 out of 10 infants during the first year of life, with a high prevalence of severe episodes, frequent visits to the Emergency Department, and frequent admissions for wheezing. Besides the elevated prescription of asthma medications, there is an excessive use of antibiotics and paracetamol in infants with RW and also in the whole sample, which is mainly related to common colds.
Acetaminophen ; Adrenal Cortex Hormones ; Anti-Bacterial Agents ; Asthma ; Brazil ; Chile ; Colombia ; Common Cold ; Cross-Sectional Studies* ; Emergency Service, Hospital ; Epidemiology ; Family Characteristics ; Humans ; Infant* ; Male ; Parents ; Peru ; Pharyngitis ; Pneumonia ; Pregnancy ; Prescriptions ; Prevalence* ; Respiratory Sounds* ; Risk Factors ; Schools, Nursery ; Smoking

In order to resolve the decline in population due to low birthrates, the South Korean government is expanding its free child care policies with an increased budget. In anticipating the effects and problems of our system, it will be worthy of attention to refer to the child care systems of other countries. In this paper, we reviewed the past and present policies and the current situation of the child care system in North Korea. North Korea started its free child care system earlier than that of South Korea, for the purpose of utilizing the women's labor force and rearing children to be revolutionary men of Juche type (Kimilsungism), in order to construct a communistic society. 'Child Care Education Law', which is the legal foundation of the child care system, regulates institutions for nursery schools and kindergarten and informs people that the country is responsible for support of child care. Despite their interest and progress in both quantity and quality in the child care system until the 1980s, the free child care system was partially disrupted, and discrepancies between ideology and actual situation were revealed due to economic difficulties from the 1990s. Because people's survival and physical health have been threatened, it is barely possible to find any study investigating the effect of institutional child care from early childhood and the instillation of unique ideology by group education from the preschool period on mental health.
Budgets ; Child ; Child Care ; Child Day Care Centers ; Democratic People's Republic of Korea* ; Education* ; Employment ; Humans ; Korea ; Male ; Mental Health ; Schools, Nursery

OBJECTIVETo study the epidemiological impact of varicella vaccine vaccination on kindergartens and school children in Beijing.

METHODSAccording to "China Information System for Diseases Control and Prevention", the reported clinical diagnosis varicella cases were tracked in kindergartens, primary and secondary schools whose onset date were from 2008 to 2010. Epidemiological survey was conducted and epidemiological features were analyzed.

RESULTSA total of 21 474 varicella cases were investigated: 55.3% (11 883 cases) had been vaccinated by varicella vaccine. Of cases with definite immunization history, interval between vaccination date and onset date were from 30 days to 1 year accounted for 3.4% (286/8510), 1 to 3 years accounted for 18.2% (1551/8510), 3 to 5 years accounted for 28.6% (2431/8510), 5 to 10 years accounted for 34.3% (2916/8510) (left-closed right-open interval); The peak age of onset was 4 years old in cases without immunization history, which was 6 years old in cases with immunization history; The proportion of cases with immunization history (≥ 30 days) had increased from 42.4% (2862/6754) in 2008 to 56.3% (4327/7679) in 2010. The cases with no fever had a higher proportion (54.9%, 6413/11 679) of immunization history (≥ 30 days) than cases with fever (47.7%, 4533/9500) (P < 0.01); The cases with rashes less than 50 had a higher proportion (57.4%, 8045/14 020) of immunization history (≥ 30 days) than cases with rashes more than 50 (40.2%, 2902/7216) (P < 0.01).

CONCLUSIONVaricella vaccine delays the peak age of onset, alleviates the symptoms. The current immunization strategy can not block varicella spread in kindergartens, primary and secondary schools.

Adolescent ; Chickenpox ; epidemiology ; prevention & control ; Chickenpox Vaccine ; Child ; Child, Preschool ; China ; epidemiology ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Schools ; Schools, Nursery

Tinea capitis is the most common fungal infection in children. Microsporum canis is a zoophilic dermatophyte and it is the most common pathogen of tinea capitis and sometimes it makes a kerion celsi. Microsporum canis infection is commonly acquired from direct contact with animals. We report here on an outbreak of tinea capitis by Microsporum canis in the nursery school.
Animals ; Arthrodermataceae ; Child ; Humans ; Microsporum ; Nurseries ; Schools, Nursery ; Tinea Capitis

This study was done to come up with a solution to effectively increase nutrition knowledge and education among nursery school teachers in the Gwang-ju metropolitan city area. The scores of teacher's nutrition knowledge were around the average of 9.4 points on a 15-point scale, which is about 63.1 points on a 100-point scale. When the types of subjects were compared, we recognized that the nursery school teachers with a college degree or those who have any training/education in nutrition had the highest scores in nutrition knowledge. Also, the nursery schools who have more than 101 children or public nursery schools had the highest scores in nutrition knowledge (p < 0.05). We can conclude that the knowledge of nutrition of nursery teachers is very lacking and it is not as high as it should be. In addition, we can also see that the dietary guidance and nutrition education time spent towards the children was very short. The lack of professional knowledge and education seems to be due to shortage of educational materials and because the teachers themselves lack the knowledge to pass on to their predecessors. In fact, even the teachers themselves feel the need to set up more nutrition-related education programs, obtain more guides and materials to teach them, as well as implement more organized and systemized teaching methods.
Child ; Humans ; Nurseries ; Schools, Nursery ; Teaching

Animals ; Child ; Child, Preschool ; Dermatitis ; epidemiology ; parasitology ; Disease Outbreaks ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Mites ; Schools, Nursery

The aim of this study was to estimate the benefit from repeated examinations in the diagnosis of enterobiasis in nursery school groups, and to test the effectiveness of individual-based risk predictions using different methods. A total of 604 children were examined using double, and 96 using triple, anal swab examinations. The questionnaires for parents, structured observations, and interviews with supervisors were used to identify factors of possible infection risk. In order to model the risk of enterobiasis at individual level, a similarity-based machine learning and prediction software Constud was compared with data mining methods in the Statistica 8 Data Miner software package. Prevalence according to a single examination was 22.5%; the increase as a result of double examinations was 8.2%. Single swabs resulted in an estimated prevalence of 20.1% among children examined 3 times; double swabs increased this by 10.1%, and triple swabs by 7.3%. Random forest classification, boosting classification trees, and Constud correctly predicted about 2/3 of the results of the second examination. Constud estimated a mean prevalence of 31.5% in groups. Constud was able to yield the highest overall fit of individual-based predictions while boosting classification tree and random forest models were more effective in recognizing Enterobius positive persons. As a rule, the actual prevalence of enterobiasis is higher than indicated by a single examination. We suggest using either the values of the mean increase in prevalence after double examinations compared to single examinations or group estimations deduced from individual-level modelled risk predictions.
Anal Canal/parasitology ; Animals ; *Diagnostic Tests, Routine/methods ; Enterobiasis/*diagnosis/epidemiology ; Enterobius/*isolation & purification ; Estonia/epidemiology ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Prevalence ; *Schools, Nursery/statistics & numerical data

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the prevalence of otitis media with effusion (OME) of kindergarten children in Wuhan City. METHOD: The study subjects were 3-6-year-old children in some kindergarten children in Wuhan City . All subjects were assessed with routine otorhinolaryngologic examination, otoscopic examination and tympanometry. Chi-square test were used to analyse the difference of data. RESULT: The prevalence of children of some kindergarten in Wuhan City is 6.67%. There was no statistical difference were found between sexuality. The prevalence of OME in 3 years old group is obviously higher than that in 4-6 years old group. Previous acute otitis media episodes, feeding, high-arched palate, and nasal obstruction are risk factors of OME. CONCLUSION Children with previous acute otitis media episode and nasal obstruction should be suggested to have otorhinolaryngologic examination regularly. It is necessary to have routine otoscopic examination and tympanometry in children of kindergarten.
Child ; Child, Preschool ; China ; epidemiology ; Humans ; Otitis Media ; epidemiology ; Prevalence ; Schools, Nursery

The purpose of this study was to analyze task performance and importance level of the dietitian who is working in the public health nutrition area. Work oriented job analysis methodology was employed for the study purpose. Subjects of 38 dietitians currently working at health centers in 2002 were recruited. Based on the focus group interview with 7 public health nutritionists and 7 professors, information about task elements was collected. Questionnaires measuring work performance and self-perception of importance of the selected task elements were administered. The results of this study can be summarized as follows; 1) The tasks with high performance and importance level among 20 tasks are developing nutrition education material (B1), nutrition services for adults and the elderly (C3), writing the proposal for nutrition services (A2), evaluating service effect (A4), improving professionalism (E1), and self management (E2). 2) The task elements with high performance and importance level among weekly task elements are nutrition education for diabetes (C56), nutrition counseling for adults (C47), nutrition for hypertension (C53), managing and keeping records (C80), nutrition education for kindergarten and nursery school children (C42), searching for nutrition education materials (B26), and searching for media (B27). 3) The number of task elements with high performance and importance level among monthly task elements are 13 in the planning and evaluation of public health nutrition service, and 5 in developing nutrition education materials. The tasks of a dietitian in the public health center show a very wide spectrum. However dietitians recognize most of the tasks are important even though they cannot perform those tasks adequately.
Adult ; Aged ; Child ; Counseling ; Focus Groups ; Humans ; Hypertension ; Public Health ; Schools, Nursery ; Self Care ; Self Concept ; Task Performance and Analysis ; Writing

The purpose of this study was to analyze task performance and importance level of the dietitian who is working in the public health nutrition area. Work oriented job analysis methodology was employed for the study purpose. Subjects of 38 dietitians currently working at health centers in 2002 were recruited. Based on the focus group interview with 7 public health nutritionists and 7 professors, information about task elements was collected. Questionnaires measuring work performance and self-perception of importance of the selected task elements were administered. The results of this study can be summarized as follows; 1) The tasks with high performance and importance level among 20 tasks are developing nutrition education material (B1), nutrition services for adults and the elderly (C3), writing the proposal for nutrition services (A2), evaluating service effect (A4), improving professionalism (E1), and self management (E2). 2) The task elements with high performance and importance level among weekly task elements are nutrition education for diabetes (C56), nutrition counseling for adults (C47), nutrition for hypertension (C53), managing and keeping records (C80), nutrition education for kindergarten and nursery school children (C42), searching for nutrition education materials (B26), and searching for media (B27). 3) The number of task elements with high performance and importance level among monthly task elements are 13 in the planning and evaluation of public health nutrition service, and 5 in developing nutrition education materials. The tasks of a dietitian in the public health center show a very wide spectrum. However dietitians recognize most of the tasks are important even though they cannot perform those tasks adequately.
Adult ; Aged ; Child ; Counseling ; Focus Groups ; Humans ; Hypertension ; Public Health ; Schools, Nursery ; Self Care ; Self Concept ; Task Performance and Analysis ; Writing