A recent study suggests that young children raised in urban environments face a greater risk of respiratory illnesses compared to their counterparts growing up in rural areas.
A study presented at the European Respiratory Society International Congress in Milan, Italy, reveals that young children raised in urban environments are more susceptible to respiratory illnesses compared to those growing up in rural areas.
A second study, presented at the Congress and published in Pediatric Pulmonology, shows that factors such as attending daycare, living in a damp home or near dense traffic increase the risk of chest infections in young children, while breastfeeding reduces the risk. It’s critical to comprehend why some otherwise healthy youngsters experience repeated illnesses and explore solutions, according to researchers.
The first study, presented by Dr. Nicklas Brustad, a researcher and physician at the Copenhagen Prospective Studies on Asthma in Childhood (COPSAC) based at Gentofte Hospital and the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, included 663 children and their mothers who took part in the research from pregnancy until the children were three years old. Researchers found that before the age of three, children who lived in urban regions had an average of 17 respiratory illnesses, such as coughs and colds, as opposed to an average of 15 infections in children who lived in rural areas. Blood tests on pregnant women and newborn babies, along with immune system examinations of the kids four weeks after birth, revealed differences between urban and rural children.
The second study, presented by Dr. Tom Ruffles from Brighton and Sussex Medical School and University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust, included data on 1344 mothers and their children living in Scotland and England. Analysis of the questionnaires revealed that breastfeeding for longer than six months helped protect babies and children from infections, while attending daycare increased the risk. Young children living in homes with visible dampness were twice as likely to need treatment with an inhaler to relieve respiratory symptoms and twice as likely to need treatment with a steroid inhaler. Living in an area with dense traffic increased the risk of chest infections, and exposure to tobacco smoke increased the risk of coughing and wheezing.
Co-researcher Professor Somnath Mukhopadhyay emphasized the need for legislation to tackle mould and damp in social housing, citing Awaab’s Law as an example of such legislation in the UK. Professor Myrofora Goutaki, chair of the European Respiratory Society’s group on Paediatric respiratory epidemiology, stressed the importance of understanding factors contributing to recurrent respiratory illnesses in children to better protect their developing lungs.
