Hospital admissions for lower respiratory tract illness before the age of two years in western Australia.

Abstract

In this study, hospital admissions for lower respiratory tract illness before two years of age have been documented for all children born in Western Australia in 1986. Admissions data were linked to birth and death records for individual children. Of the total cohort, 5% of non-Aboriginal and 17% of Aboriginal children were hospitalised only once for lower respiratory tract illness; 1% of non-Aboriginal and 11% of Aboriginal children had repeated admissions. Perinatal conditions comprised the greatest proportion of the admissions for non-Aboriginal children, and pneumonia for Aboriginal children. Non-Aboriginal children had decreasing admission rates from the neonatal period onwards, whereas..