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Matthew Grigsby,1,2 Trishul Siddharthan,1 Muhammad AH Chowdhury,3 Ali Siddiquee,3 Adolfo Rubinstein,4 Edgardo Sobrino,4 J Jaime Miranda,5,6 Antonio Bernabe-Ortiz,5 Dewan Alam,7 William Checkley1,2 1Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care, School of Medicine, 2Program in Global Disease Epidemiology and Control, Department of International Health, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA; 3Centre for Control of Chronic Diseases, icddr,b, Dhaka, Bangladesh; 4Institute for Clinical Effectiveness and Health Policy, Buenos Aires, Argentina; 5CRONICAS Centre of Excellence for Chronic Diseases, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, 6Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Lima, Peru; 7Faculty of Health, School of Kinesiology and Health Science, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada Background: Socioeconomic status (SES) is a strong social determinant of health. There remains a limited understanding of the association between SES and COPD prevalence among low- and middle-income countries where the majority of COPD-related morbidity and mortality occurs. We examined the association between SES and COPD prevalence using data collected in Argentina, Bangladesh, Chile, Peru, and Uruguay.Methods: We compiled lung function, demographic, and SES data from three population-based studies for 11,042 participants aged 35–95 years. We used multivariable alternating logistic regressions to study the association between COPD prevalence and SES indicators adjusted for age, sex, self-reported daily smoking, and biomass fuel smoke exposure. Principal component analysis was performed on monthly household income, household size, and education to create a composite SES index.Results: Overall COPD prevalence was 9.2%, ranging from 1.7% to 15.4% across sites. The adjusted odds ratio of having COPD was lower for people who completed secondary school (odds ratio [OR] =0.73, 95% CI 0.55–0.98) and lower with higher monthly household income (OR =0.96 per category, 95% CI 0.93–0.99). When combining SES factors into a composite index, we found that the odds of having COPD was greater with lower SES (interquartile OR =1.23, 95% CI 1.05–1.43) even after controlling for subject-specific factors and environmental exposures.Conclusion: In this analysis of multiple population-based studies, lower education, lower household income, and lower composite SES index were associated with COPD. Since household income may be underestimated in population studies, adding household size and education into a composite index may provide a better surrogate for SES. Keywords: COPD, socioeconomic status, low- and middle-income country

The main objective of this study was to evaluate the association between household air pollution with lower tract respiratory infection ( LRTI) in children younger than 5 years old and adverse pregnancy outcomes. This retrospective cohort study took place in two cities in Patagonia. Using systemic random sampling, we selected households in which at least one child <5 years had lived and/or a child had been born alive or stillborn. Trained interviewers administered the questionnaire. We included 926 households with 695 pregnancies and 1074 children. Household cooking was conducted indoors in ventilated rooms and the use of wood as the principal fuel for cooking was lower in Temuco (13% vs. 17%). In exposed to biomass fuel use, the adjusted OR for LRTI was 1.87 (95% CI 0.98-3.55; P = 0.056) in Temuco and 1.12 (95% CI 0.61-2.05; P = 0.716) in Bariloche. For perinatal morbidity, the OR was 3.11 (95% CI 0.86-11.32; P = 0.084) and 1.41 (95% CI 0.50-3.97; P = 0.518), respectively. However, none of the effects were statistically significant ( P > 0.05). The use of biomass fuel to cook in traditional cookstoves in ventilated dwellings may increase the risk of perinatal morbidity and LRTI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pleuropulmonary manifestations of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) have been reported to be of variable prevalence, depending on the diagnostic methods used. The objective of this study was to determine the anatomopathological prevalence and the nature of lung involvement associated with SLE and to define if there were differences in the grade and type of pulmonary involvement in patients who had died at different time periods, before or after 1996. Complete autopsy studies of 90 patients with SLE diagnosis carried out between 1958 and 2006 and their clinical records were studied. All patients fulfilled the American College of Rheumathology (ACR) diagnostic criteria for SLE. Two groups of patients were analyzed: patients who had died before 1996 and those deceased in 1996-2006. Some pleuropulmonary involvement was detected in 97.8% of the autopsies. The most frequent findings were pleuritis (77.8%), bacterial infections (57.8%), primary and secondary alveolar haemorrhages (25.6%), followed by distal airway alterations (21.1%), opportunistic infections (14.4%) and pulmonary thromboembolism (7.8%), both acute and chronic. No cases of acute or chronic lupus pneumonitis were found. Opportunistic lung infections were invasive aspergillosis, disseminated strongyloidiasis, mucormicosis and Pneumocystis carinii. Only three of 23 patients with alveolar haemorrhage showed capillaritis. The four patients with primary pulmonary hypertension (PHT) had plexiform lesions. Deceased patients' age at death (46.09 ± 11.01 vs 30.3 ± 11.5 years, P < 0.0001) as well as survival time from diagnosis date (11.8 ± 11.2 vs 4.4 ± 4.9 years, P < 0.0001) in the second time period evaluated were significantly higher. However, there were no statistically significant differences in the prevalence of any of the pulmonary manifestations. Sepsis was considered the major cause of death without significant differences in both groups. Our results show that pulmonary manifestations directly caused by systemic lupus erythematosus are very uncommon and that their prevalence has not changed in the past 10 years. Pulmonary infection is still the most frequent affection, and it is an important cause of death in patients with lupus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]