Does Child Care in the First Year of Life Pose a Risk for Concurrent and Future Ear Infections?

Abstract

Child care centre attendance is associated with an increased risk of concurrent ear infections, but what is less clear is whether there are any positive or negative long-term effects of early child care attendance on the incidence of ear infections in later childhood. This research assessed the impact of early child care attendance on concurrent and long-term risk of ear infections. Complete sets of relevant wave 1–5 data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children were available for 3513 children (1822 boys) who had a median age of 9 months (M = 8.7, SD = 2.6) at wave 1, 34 months (M = 33.8, SD = 2.9) at wave 2, 57 months (M = 57.5, SD = 2.8) at wave 3, 82 months (M = 81.8, SD = 3.5)..