Skip to main content
British Medical Journal logoLink to British Medical Journal
. 1973 Jul 28;3(5873):195–198. doi: 10.1136/bmj.3.5873.195

Respiratory Disease in Young Adults: Influence of Early Childhood Lower Respiratory Tract Illness, Social Class, Air Pollution, and Smoking

J R T Colley, J W B Douglas, D D Reid
PMCID: PMC1586303  PMID: 4718835

Abstract

The prevalence of cough during the day or night in winter has been studied in 3,899 20-year-olds. These were members of a cohort born in England, Scotland, and Wales in the last week of March 1946. The prevalence of cough and current smoking habits have been related to events recorded during infancy and childhood—that is, exposure to air pollution, social class of father, and lower respiratory tract illness under 2 years of age. At age 20, of these factors cigarette smoking was found to have the greatest effect on symptom prevalence, followed by a history of a lower respiratory tract illness under 2 years of age. Social class and air pollution had little effect.

Full text

PDF
198

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Colley J. R., Reid D. D. Urban and social origins of childhood bronchitis in England and Wales. Br Med J. 1970 Apr 25;2(5703):213–217. doi: 10.1136/bmj.2.5703.213. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Colley J. R. Respiratory dieease in childhood. Br Med Bull. 1971 Jan;27(1):9–14. doi: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.bmb.a070822. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Holland W. W., Elliott A. Cigarette smoking, respiratory symptoms, and anti-smoking propaganda. An experiment. Lancet. 1968 Jan 6;1(7532):41–43. doi: 10.1016/s0140-6736(68)90026-3. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from British Medical Journal are provided here courtesy of BMJ Publishing Group

RESOURCES