DOENÇAS RESPIRATÓRIAS AGUDAS EM CRIANÇAS BRASILEIRAS: OS CUIDADORES SÃO CAPAZES DE DETECTAR OS PRIMEIROS SINAIS DE ALERTA?

Frequency of Vitamin a Deficiency in Children Hospitalized for Pneumonia: An Integrative Review

Objective: To identify the frequency of vitamin A deficiency in children aged 6 months to 5 years hospitalized for pneumonia. Methods: An integrative literature review was carried out, where searches were made by two independent researchers, with no language limits or publication time in the databases PubMed, LILACS, Web of Science, Scopus and CINAHL, and in the gray literature-OpenGrey, Proquest and Google Scholar. In the eligibility phase, the screened studies were read in full and those that did not answer the research question were excluded. Methodological quality was assessed using the Downs & Black (1998) checklist. Results: 1642 articles were identified, after all stages of screening and selection, 10 studies were included, of which 5 were longitudinal, 4 were intervention and 1 transversal. All studies identified subclinical vitamin A deficiency in children hospitalized with pneumonia; the highest frequency of subclinical vitamin A deficiency was 93.2%. All studies evaluated showed frequencies of subclinical vitamin A deficiency >20%. Conclusion: There is a high frequency of subclinical vitamin A deficiency in children with pneumonia; these data need to be further explored in terms of their associations. For this reason, new studies that evaluate this topic are of fundamental importance.

Climate seasonality and lower respiratory tract diseases: a predictive model for pediatric hospitalizations

OBJECTIVES

to analyze the climate seasonality of respiratory diseases in children aged 0-9 years and present a model to predict hospital admissions for 2021 to 2022.

METHODS

verify, in a temporal manner, the correlation of admissions for pneumonia, bronchitis/bronchiolitis, and asthma with meteorological variables, aiming to demonstrate seasonality with the adjustment of temporal series models.

RESULTS

there was a seasonal effect in the number of registered cases for all diseases, with the highest incidence of registrations in the months of autumn and winter.

CONCLUSIONS

it was possible to observe a tendency towards a decrease in the registration of pneumonia cases; In cases of admissions due to bronchitis and bronchiolitis, there was a slight tendency towards an increase; and, in occurrence rates of asthma, there was no variation in the number of cases.

Drivers of respiratory health care demand in Acre state, Brazilian Amazon: a cross-sectional study

Background

The scarce knowledge about the drivers of demand for respiratory health care in the Brazilian Amazon, where the gap of human and physical health care resources is wide, is expanded with two surveys conducted in the west of the region, in Acre state. Potential drivers, informed by a review of twelve recent papers, were classified into seven categories capturing the individual, household, community and macroeconomic dimensions.

Methods

Quantitative field surveys were conducted in 2017 and 2019 based on coupled conglomerate-quota randomization sampling. Adults responded about their own health or their children’s health. The probability of seeking physician care for the latest episode of respiratory illness or dry cough was analysed with multiple nonlinear regressions, having as covariates the potential predictors informed by the literature.

Results

The propensity to seek health care and to purchase medication was larger for children. Influenza-like illness (Despite the exact diagnostic stated by respondents being “influenza”, a virus detection test (such as the PCR test) is not commonly applied, as informed by the Acre state public health service. In consistency, the term “influenza-like illness” is used.) was the most frequently diagnosed disease, followed by pneumonia, suggesting that a health care-seeking rate below 40% may perpetuate health impairment and local contagion. Illnesses’ severity, including the pain experienced, was the main predictor, revealing that subjective perception was more influential than objective individual and household characteristics.

Conclusions

The results suggest that subjective underestimation of respiratory illnesses’ consequences for oneself and for local society could prevent health care from being sought. This is in line with some previous studies but departs from those emphasizing the role of objective factors. Social consequences, of, for instance, a macroeconomic nature, need to be highlighted based on studies detecting long-run relationships among health care demand, health and economic performance at the national level. Depending on the intensity of the trade-off between the costs imposed on the health system by increased demand and on the economy by the reduced productivity of the ill, policy could be adopted to change subjective perceptions of illnesses with nudges and educational and informational interventions.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-022-14171-z.

Sazonalidade climática e doenças das vias respiratórias inferiores: utilização de modelo preditor de hospitalizações pediátricas

RESUMO Objetivos: analisar a sazonalidade climática das doenças respiratórias em crianças de 0 a 9 anos e apresentar um modelo para previsão de internações hospitalares para os anos de 2021 a 2022. Métodos: propôs-se verificar, de maneira temporal, a correlação de internações para pneumonia, bronquite/bronquiolite e asma com variáveis meteorológicas, visando verificar a sazonalidade com o ajuste de modelos de séries temporais. Resultados: percebeu-se, para todas as enfermidades, o efeito sazonal no número de casos registrados, com o maior número de registros nos meses de outono e inverno. Conclusões: foi possível constatar uma tendência de diminuição no registro de casos de pneumonia; já para os casos de internações por bronquite e bronquiolite, observou-se uma leve tendência de aumento; e, em relação as taxas de ocorrência de asma, não houve variação.

The effects of health spending on the propagation of infectious diseases

We explore the discontinuity in the allocation of the main federal grant to Brazilian municipalities to identify the local effects of health spending and the spillovers into the bordering jurisdictions. Fiscal reactions are asymmetric: small neighbors reduce health spending, while we do not find a significant budgetary response in the largest neighbor. Our results suggest a reduction in the spread of infectious diseases in the neighbors, with fewer residents hospitalized with gastrointestinal infections. In addition, the elderly demand less hospitalization in the largest bordering jurisdictions due to respiratory infectious diseases. Finally, we find a direct and significant reduction in infant mortality, consistent with the observed pediatricians' increase, while the spillover effects on neighbors' mortality rates are not conclusive.