HOW SHOULD RELATIVE RISK ESTIMATES FOR ACUTE OTITIS-MEDIA IN CHILDRENAGED LESS-THAN 2 YEARS BE PERCEIVED

To determine how the effects of certain risk factors for acute otitis media (AOM) vary according to the values of other risk determinants, a nd thus to obtain risk estimates more applicable to individual childre n, the medical records of a random sample of 2,512 children in norther n Finland were monitored for the disease for up to an average age of 2 2 months. Information on determinants of AOM was obtained from parenta l questionnaires. The risk of the first AOM episode and that of later episodes were modelled separately by logistic regression using time de pendent values for some determinants, The odds ratio (OR) estimates fo r the alterable risk factors varied markedly over categories of other determinants as follows: nursery day care versus home care (OR from 1. 1 to 3.0), parental smoking (OR from 0.9 to 1.5), and breast-feeding ( OR from 0.5 to 1.0), Hence, to assess the significance of each risk fa ctor for an individual child, the values for other relevant factors mu st be considered concurrently.