[Correlation between air pollution and respiratory morbidity in children at Dorog].

The authors studied the dynamical association between the level of air pollution and the respiratory morbidity among children. By examination of the records of 1127 children, the frequency of acute respiratory diseases, and especially bronchitis, was found to be very high in the first 3 years of age, and extremely high among infants. The prevalence of the children with chronic nonspecific pulmonary diseases was found to be approximately 3 times higher than the national average. Correlation analysis showed high correlation between the acute respiratory morbidity of the total children population of age 0-14 living in Dorog and the level of SO2 pollution. This was especially true for the bronchitis morbidity among infants (with a correlation coefficient of 0.92). The authors stress the importance of the primary prevention, claiming that the development of chronic nonspecific pulmonary diseases could be prevented by controlling the harmful environmental factors.