ILLNESSES OF ONE-YEAR-OLD CHILDREN - A HEALTH DIARY STUDY

Although data are available giving races of serious illness and causes of mortality among children, there has been little documentation of p atterns of normal childhood morbidity, particularly for specific age g roups. To describe the health problems which are experienced by one-ye ar-old children, information was taken from a larger study, the purppo se of which was to compare illness patterns between groups of children vaccinated against measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) at 13 months and 15 months of age. In this study, mothers were asked to keep a daily: d iary documenting any health problems experienced by their child both b efore and after their child was vaccinated. The data reported here wer e taken from the diaries kept during the month preceding the MMR vacci nation, giving a picture of the types of health problems encountered d aily among this age group. We found that minor health complaints were commonly reported for these children, and that there were marked diffe rences in these reported health problems by sex of the child, season o f the year, and type of child care setting.