Sociodemographic and clinical characteristics at age 7 of the middle-aged TAHS participants who formed the study sample for the current analysis
| Childhood clinical characteristic in 1968 | TAHS participants attending follow-up at age 53 (N=3202 (%))* | ||||
| None (n=1680 (52.5%)) | Chronic bronchitis groups at age 7 years | P trend | |||
| Non-recurrent (n=902 (28.1%)) | Recurrent, non-protracted (n=578 (18.1%)) | Recurrent-protracted (n=42 (1.3%)) | |||
| Age (years, SD) | 6.50 (0.3) | 6.51 (0.3) | 6.50 (0.3) | 6.54 (0.3) | 0.659 |
| Sex (% male) | 796 (47) | 432 (48) | 327 (56) | 23 (55) | 0.004 |
| Familial bronchitic symptoms | – | – | – | – | – |
| One parent only | 428 (25) | 317 (35) | 258 (45) | 23 (55) | <0.001 |
| Both parents | 30 (1.8) | 40 (4.4) | 47 (8.1) | 5 (12) | <0.001 |
| ≥3 Siblings, of any age | 796 (47) | 366 (41) | 211 (36) | 15 (36) | <0.001 |
| Mother who regularly smoked | 539 (32) | 313 (35) | 217 (37) | 13 (31) | 0.027 |
| >5 cigarettes/day | 436 (26) | 257 (29) | 184 (32) | 7 (17) | 0.040 |
| Father who regularly smoked | 1003 (60) | 501 (56) | 351 (61) | 27 (64) | 0.987 |
| >5 cigarettes/day | 882 (52) | 445 (49) | 313 (54) | 24 (57) | 0.694 |
| Paternal occupation | – | – | – | – | – |
| Highest SES | 401 (24) | 237 (27) | 150 (26) | 7 (17) | 0.118 |
| Lowest SES | 212 (13) | 89 (9.8) | 73 (13) | 6 (15) | 0.196 |
| Remote rurality of school | 60 (3.6) | 20 (2.2) | 16 (2.8) | 0 (0) | 0.086 |
| Asthma/wheezing-ever | 92 (5.5) | 166 (18) | 269 (46) | 25 (60) | <0.001 |
| >5 episodes | 26 (1.6) | 27 (3.0) | 208 (36) | 17 (44) | <0.001 |
| Childhood infections | – | – | – | – | – |
| Pneumonia and/or pleurisy | 108 (6.5) | 153 (17) | 151 (26) | 16 (38) | <0.001 |
| Measles (non-immunised) | 1154 (69) | 623 (69) | 379 (65) | 32 (76) | 0.423 |
| Pertussis (non-immunised) | 30 (1.7) | 14 (1.6) | 7 (1.2) | 0 (0) | 0.220 |
| Pertussis (immunised) | 90 (5.3) | 79 (8.8) | 42 (7.3) | 4 (9.5) | 0.050 |
*Percentages in brackets compares the prevalence between childhood bronchitis groups.
SES, socioeconomic status; TAHS, Tasmanian Longitudinal Health Study.