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We carried out a case-control study to investigate risk factors for childhood pneumonia in two groups of 650 children aged under two years in the city of Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil. The cases were children recruited at the main pediatric hospital with a radiological diagnosis of pneumonia, and controls were children of the same age group recruited from the neighbourhood of the cases. In this paper we focus on variables related to childcare practices. Working mothers, proportion of time the mother had worked since the child was born, and use of day care centers emerged as important risk factors with estimated relative risks of 1.58, 1.76 and 5.22, respectively. Also important were the number of children living in the house and presence of grandparents. However, the presence of siblings under two years and the birth order were not associated with pneumonia. All analysis included adjustment for confounding by income, parents' education, and other risk factors as appropriate. This is the first study from a developing country to identify attendance at day care centers as a risk factor for increased childhood morbidity, in this case pneumonia. This finding is of significant public health importance for countries such as Brazil with growing urban populations and an increasing need by mothers to find work outside the home.Estudou-se o risco de pneumonia nas crianças menores de dois anos na região metropolitana de Fortaleza entre junho/89 e maio/90. Foram investigadas as práticas relacionadas aos cuidados da criança como possíveis fatores de risco de pneumonia. Fatores maternos, ambientais e sócio-econômicos foram também estudados devido a sua possível relação com as práticas no cuidado da criança. Foi utilizada metodologia de caso-controle, sendo casos as crianças com diagnóstico clínico e radiológico de pneumonia, e controles aquelas crianças com diferença de idade inferior a dois meses que não apresentassem sintomas de infecção respiratória, e que residissem na vizinhança do caso selecionado. Razão de "odds" (RO) foi utilizada para estimar os riscos relativos, através de regressão logística condicional. Os principais fatores de risco encontrados foram a freqüência a creche (RO=5,2), trabalho da mãe (RO=1,6) e presença dos avós no domicílio (RO=1,4). A idade da mãe, o número de gestações e a aglomeração também estiveram associados com pneumonia.

We carried out a case-control study to investigate risk factors for childhood pneumonia in two groups of 650 children aged under two years in the city of Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil. The cases were children recruited at the main pediatric hospital with a radiological diagnosis of pneumonia, and controls were children of the same age group recruited from the neighbourhood of the cases. In this paper we focus on variables related to childcare practices. Working mothers, proportion of time the mother had worked since the child was born, and use of day care centers emerged as important risk factors with estimated relative risks of 1.58, 1.76 and 5.22, respectively. Also important were the number of children living in the house and presence of grandparents. However, the presence of siblings under two years and the birth order were not associated with pneumonia. All analysis included adjustment for confounding by income, parents' education, and other risk factors as appropriate. This is the first study from a developing country to identify attendance at day care centers as a risk factor for increased childhood morbidity, in this case pneumonia. This finding is of significant public health importance for countries such as Brazil with growing urban populations and an increasing need by mothers to find work outside the home.