Epidemiologic reviews
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Epidemiologic reviews · Jan 1990
ReviewThe epidemiology of acute respiratory infections in children and adults: a global perspective.
While a number of advances have been made in our understanding of the epidemiology of acute respiratory infections in the past two decades, a number of serious questions still require urgent answers. The associations of factors such as chronic disease in adults, direct smoking, passive smoking, crowding, and breast feeding to acute respiratory infections are now well documented. Appropriate changes in public health policy need not be predicated on results from still further studies. ⋯ Greater standardization of data collection methods in developed and developing countries also needs to be more seriously addressed. Given that some advances have been made in this area, the time may be right for development of acute symptom questionnaires, akin to the American Thoracic Society chronic respiratory questionnaire, for use in both developed and developing countries. Standardization of diaries, although somewhat more difficult, would also be extremely useful in many instances.