[Hospitalization of foreign children in the Paris area].

In 1980, within a 29 day-period, we studied all the hospitalizations of children in 14 departments of the "Assistance Publique" in Paris. The survey included 940 children and 978 hospitalizations. We compared French children with foreign children, living in France and born to 2 foreign parents. The rate of foreign children among the hospitalized children is abnormally high. This high rate is partly explained by social factors but remains high after adjustment of those factors. The 2 groups of children are not hospitalized for the same kind of diseases: French children are more frequently hospitalized for congenital malformations, foreign children for accidents and infections. Foreign children are hospitalized longer than French children for a same disease. The length of hospitalization is not connected with the father's type of work but rather with the occupation of the mother. The child's hospitalization is shorter when the mother has a professional occupation, and that influence of the mother's work is independent of the other factors.