Bioaerosol concentration and health implication for children in daycare centers

Rotavirus in infant-toddler day care centers: Epidemiology relevant to disease control strategies

Characterization by antibiotype of the 1,096 Streptococcus pneumoniae recovered from 2,111 nasopharyngeal samples of children attending 16 day care centers (DCCs) in Lisbon, Portugal, and molecular typing of 413 drug-resistant pneumococci (DRPn) and 89 fully drug-susceptible pneumococci (DSPn) has allowed several conclusions. (i) There was an increase in the frequency of DRPn colonizing children in DCCs from 40% in 1996 to 45% in 1997 to 50% in 1998. (ii) Drug resistance spread by cross-transmission of DRPn clones. A few (8 out of 57) DRPn clones were repeatedly isolated from a large number of children in several DCCs and during each period of surveillance, suggesting the epidemic nature of these clones, which included lineages representing internationally spread S. pneumoniae clones. (iii) Dissemination of resistance determinants among pneumococci colonizing the nasopharynx occurred. Association of identical pulsed-field gel electrophoresis patterns with diverse antibiotypes among pneumococci colonizing children suggests that the high prevalence of DRPn involves not only cross-transmission of resistant strains but also dispersal of resistance genes through recombinational mechanisms. (iv) DCCs are autonomous epidemiological units. Among the 413 DRPn, 57 different lineages were detected; these lineages were dispersed among the 16 DCCs to produce unique microbiological profiles for each of the DCCs. Higher genetic diversity and less sharing of clonal types were observed among the DSPn.

An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was used to detect Giardia lamblia in stool specimens collected during a 15-month longitudinal study of diarrhea in 82 children 1 to 24 months old attending a day care center (DCC) in Houston. A total of 2727 stool specimens were collected on a weekly basis from the DCC children and were evaluated for rotavirus and Giardia. For DCC children who developed diarrhea stool specimens were also cultured for bacterial enteropathogens. During the 15-month study period, 48 episodes of Giardia infection were detected in 27 of 82 (33%) DCC children, compared with 57 episodes of rotavirus detected in 37 (45%) of these same DCC children. The duration of Giardia excretion was 2.0 +/- 1.5 weeks (mean +/- SD). Only 6 (7%) of the 82 DCC children, or 6 of the 27 (22%) with infection, developed symptoms attributable to Giardia. Ten of the 27 (37%) DCC children infected with Giardia had 2 or more episodes of infection. Giardia was identified in the DCC in all months except June. Two Giardia outbreaks occurred in 1 of the 6 DCC rooms under study. One outbreak was associated with overcrowding. Neither outbreak was associated with the introduction of a new Giardia-positive child into the involved room. In this study Giardia infection occurred commonly in the DCC throughout the year, was rarely associated with illness and was not associated with introduction of asymptomatic carriers into the DCC rooms.

Considering the alarming rise in the rate of asthma and respiratory diseases among school children, it is of great importance to investigate all probable causes. Outside of the home, children spend most of their time in school. Many studies have researched the indoor air quality of elementary and secondary school buildings to determine the exposure of school children to indoor air pollution. However, studies of exposures to very young children in day-care centers are scarce. Unlike at elementary schools or universities, children in day-care centers are more vulnerable due to their physiology, inability to articulate discomfort, or to adapt their behavior to avoid exposures. This chapter reviews current studies on the indoor environment in day-care centers. It summarizes air pollution levels and related environmental and behavioral factors in day-care centers that have been reported in the literature. Additionally, exposure to indoor air pollution and related potential health outcomes are examined. This chapter concludes that indoor air pollution in day-care centers often exceeds current guidelines, and designers and policymakers should be made aware of the impact on the health and wellbeing of children in day-care centers. Proper interventions and guidelines should be considered to create a healthy indoor environment for children in day-care centers.

Volunteering is a recognized and valued as a very important part of social activity, yielding benefits not only volunteers but also volunteers and host organizations and the entire state. The main purpose of the voluntary social work is to help a person to fully improve the quality of life. Lithuania in voluntary social activities mostly involved young people, a priority area - social work with children at social risk. So it is important for voluntary disclosure of social interactions on children‘s day care centers. The aim of this paper is to investigate the activities of voluntary social opportunities for children day care centers.The research showed that two-thirds of respondents feel that voluntary social work opportunities for children in day care centers are high. A third of respondents indicated that children’s day care centers are working with the children and carry out organizational work. Less than half of the respondents to decide on education of children, more than a third of the respondents to decide social and less than one-third of the respondents to decide childrens‘ psychological problems. The research shows, that respondents are least likely to carry out the rights of children function. The main factor of motivation of voluntatry social work in children day care centers is opportunity to acquire new knowledge, skills, experience, learn new things. The study showed that voluntary social work day care centers for children of respondents satisfying experience for the acquisition and personal development needs.

Background: This study was designed to assess gut microflora changes in children in Finnish day-care centers (DCCs). Methods: Ninety-four children in four DCCs were randomised to receive a combination of Lactobacillus acidophilus La 5 and Bifidobacterium lactis Bb 12 or placebo for six months. Faecal samples were collected monthly and during bouts of diarrhoea. The parents kept a daily record. These groups were similar to infections and antibiotic treatments during the last month before the study. Altogether 14/76 (18%) children developed diarrhoea, and 13 healthy children who did not were studied as controls from the same DCCs at the same time. The gut microflora of altogether 26 children was examined by fluorescent in situ hybridisation at the start of the study, and before and after diarrhoea. Results: Twelve of 26 subjects (46%) had initially an aberrant microflora as determined by high levels of clostridia, the remaining 14 (54%) had balanced microflora. In the group with aberrant microflora, 9/12 (75%) manifested diarrhoea during follow-up, whereas in the group with balanced microflora, 4/14 (29%) fell ill with diarrhoea (p = 0.04). Diarrhoea reduced the number of all bacteria for at least a month. Antibiotic therapies increased the numbers of bacteria, mostly the number of clostridia. The initial total number of bacteria in the probiotic group decreased significantly in the late follow-up samples; p = 0.0075, this being due to the stabilising effect of probiotics. During treatment with probiotics aberrant microflora tended to approach the pattern in balanced microflora. Conclusions: A smaller and more stable amount of bacteria in the gut microflora was associated with healthy outcome of children during the study. Not only infections and antibiotics caused disruption of the gut microflora; aberrance of the gut microflora itself seems to predispose a child to diarrhoea episodes and other infections. Probiotics reduced the aberrance.

Considering the alarming rise in the rate of asthma and respiratory diseases among school children, it is of great importance to investigate all probable causes. Outside of the home, children spend most of their time in school. Many studies have researched the indoor air quality of elementary and secondary school buildings to determine the exposure of school children to indoor air pollution. However, studies of exposures to very young children in day-care centers are scarce. Unlike at elementary schools or universities, children in day-care centers are more vulnerable due to their physiology, inability to articulate discomfort, or to adapt their behavior to avoid exposures. This chapter reviews current studies on the indoor environment in day-care centers. It summarizes air pollution levels and related environmental and behavioral factors in day-care centers that have been reported in the literature. Additionally, exposure to indoor air pollution and related potential health outcomes are examined. This chapter concludes that indoor air pollution in day-care centers often exceeds current guidelines, and designers and policymakers should be made aware of the impact on the health and wellbeing of children in day-care centers. Proper interventions and guidelines should be considered to create a healthy indoor environment for children in day-care centers.KeywordsIndoor air quality (IAQ)Day-care centerHealth impacts

One aimed to identify the nutritional profile of children in a public daycare center in the city of Cuité-Paraíba, from the perspective of health surveillance. This is a cross-sectional, exploratory-descriptive, field study with a quantitative approach, performed in 2011, with 55 children from 6 to 60 months of life, assisted full time in a public daycare center, who met the selection criteria: be attending the daycare center; and not present any disability. One used for evaluation the anthropometric measurements of weight, height and Body Mass Index, according to the growth curve suggested by the Ministry of Health. One identified that 96.4% had adequate nutritional status, however, 7.3% had overweight risk and 3.6% underweight risk, especially girls. It is important to raise managers’, professionals’ and parents’ awareness about the health surveillance of children in daycare centers for identification and intervention against nutritional changes, encouraging an adequate child growth.

Giardia lamblia in children in day-care centres in southern Ontario, Canada, and susceptibility of animals to G. lamblia

Nasopharyngeal carriage of Haemophilus influenzae, Streptococcus pneumoniae, and Moraxella catarrhalis was studied in 259 children attending day care centers (DCC) in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and in 276 control children. The DCC children were sampled a second time after 4 weeks. Carriage rates for DCC children and controls were 58 and 37% for S. pneumoniae, 37 and 11% for H. influenzae, and 80 and 48% for M. catarrhalis, respectively. No increased antibiotic resistance rates were found in strains isolated from DCC children. All H. influenzae isolates were typed by random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analysis. Evidence for frequent transmission of H. influenzae strains within DCC was found. In the control group only two isolates (4%) displayed identical RAPD types versus 38% of strains from DCC children. Colonization with H. influenzae appeared to be short-lived in these children; more than half of the children harboring H. influenzae in the first sample were negative in the second sample, whereas most children still positive in the second sample had a different genotype than in the first sample. Of the newly acquired strains in the second sample, 40% were identical to a strain that had been found in a child in the same DCC in the first sample. DCC are to be considered epidemiological niches with a high potential for the spread of pathogenic microorganisms.

In the USA, a high prevalence rate of cytomegalovirus (CMV) excretion among children in day-care centres was reported. However, there is no research about the prevalence rate of CMV among children in day-care centres in Japan. The CMV excretion was studied in 54 children's saliva samples, collected from two different day-care centres in Tokyo. As a control, the prevalence of CMV was studied among 61 healthy children who did not attend any day-care centers. The CMV DNA in saliva were examined by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis with one pair of primers for the immediate early region. The sequence of CMV genomes were examined in CMV PCR positive samples. Of the 54 saliva samples, 20.6% (6/29) and 24% (6/25) were CMV PCR positive in children at A and B day-care centres, respectively. The overall positivity of CMV PCR in saliva was 22.2% (12/54). Of the 61 saliva samples as the control study, 6.5% (4/61) were CMV PCR positive. There was a difference in the positivity in each age group of day-care centres and normal control. Each sample of the same day-care center gave conclusive and identical sequence results. We suspected that in each day-care center that there was one prevailing viral strain. We suppose that CMV infections were acquired inside the day-care centres. This is a first report which described viral transmission in day-care centres in Japan.

Asymptomatic excretion of rotavirus before and after rotavirus diarrhea in children in day care centers

This study was performed to determine the prevalence, serotypes and antibiotic susceptibility patterns of penicillin-resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae in children younger than 3 years of age in day-care centers in Houston, TX. Nasopharyngeal cultures were obtained on two occasions, in March and May, 1989, from 140 children in 4 day-care centers. All penicillin-resistant S. pneumoniae organisms isolated in this study had minimum inhibitory concentrations to penicillin of between 0.1 and 0.5 microgram/ml and were thus intermediately resistant. No highly resistant S. pneumoniae (minimum inhibitory concentration > or = 1.0 microgram/ml) was isolated in this study. Nasal carriage of S. pneumoniae occurred in 39% of children; carriage of intermediately resistant S. pneumoniae occurred in 4% of children. Of the 39% of children who carried S. pneumoniae, 11% carried intermediately resistant strains. In one day-care center with a prior history of intermediately resistant S. pneumoniae (Center 1), the prevalence of intermediate penicillin resistance was significantly (P = 0.047) higher than in the other three centers. Among children surveyed twice 15% of Center 1 children carried an intermediately penicillin-resistant strain at least once, whereas in the other centers 3% of children carried an intermediately resistant strain at least once. Sixty-two percent of intermediately penicillin-resistant strains were resistant to multiple antibiotics and all were serotype 14. Intermediately penicillin-resistant S. pneumoniae isolates were prevalent among young children in day-care centers in Houston and may persist in some day-care centers and become endemic.

Molecular epidemiology of cytomegalovirus: Viral transmission among children attending a day care center, their parents, and caretakers

Atopic dermatitis (AD) is the most common childhood inflammatory skin disorder. The purpose of this study was to elucidate the knowledge level of daycare center teachers about AD and related factors. Study subjects were 297 teachers (287 female, 10 male) from 20 randomly selected daycare centers in Istanbul. The knowledge level of teachers was assessed using a questionnaire with 21 questions about AD. The teachers were asked nine additional questions about demographic and other characteristics of the child care centers and about themselves. The mean age of the teachers was 26.4 ± 8.1 years (range 20-53 yrs). The mean score for the 21 questions was 71.4 ± 12.1 (68%) from a maximum of 105 points. The response rate of teachers rate for each question ranged from 54% to 90%. The completely true response rate for each question ranged from 3.0% to 66.7%. The knowledge level of the teachers was related to the number of children in the daycare center, but not to sex, age, education level, family history of atopy, teacher's monthly salary, location, or whether the daycare center was public or private. Although teachers in daycare centers have some knowledge about AD, widespread educational programs for teachers about AD may help to improve the understanding of the disease and the quality of life of affected children in daycare centers.