1
Department of Public Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, Medical
University of Bialystok, Bialystok, Poland
2 Department of Epidemiology and Population Studies, Institute of Public Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, Jagiellonian University Medical College, Krakow, Poland
2 Department of Epidemiology and Population Studies, Institute of Public Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, Jagiellonian University Medical College, Krakow, Poland
Environmental Health 2015, 14:61
doi:10.1186/s12940-015-0048-1
The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.ehjournal.net/content/14/1/61
The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.ehjournal.net/content/14/1/61
| Received: | 7 January 2015 |
| Accepted: | 2 July 2015 |
| Published: | 21 July 2015 |
© 2015 Genowska et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
Abstract
Background
Health status of infants is related to the general state of health of women of child-bearing
age; however, women's occupational environment and socio-economic conditions also
seem to play an important role. The aim of the present ecological study was to assess
the relationship between occupational environment, industrial pollution, socio-economic
status and infant mortality in Poland.
Methods
Data on infant mortality and environmental and socio-economic characteristics for
the 66 sub-regions of Poland for the years 2005–2011 were used in the analysis. Factor
analysis was used to extract the most important factors explaining total variance
among the 23 studied exposures. Generalized Estimating Equations model was used to
evaluate the link between infant mortality and the studied extracted factors.
Results
Marked variation for infant mortality and the characteristics of industrialization
was observed among the 66 sub-regions of Poland. Four extracted factors: “poor working
environment”, “urbanization and employment in the service sector”, “industrial pollution”,
“economic wealth” accounted for 77.3 % of cumulative variance between the studied
exposures. In the multivariate regression analysis, an increase in factor “poor working
environment” of 1 SD was related to an increase in infant mortality of 40 (95 % CI:
28–53) per 100,000 live births. Additionally, an increase in factor “industrial pollution”
of 1 SD was associated with an increase in infant mortality of 16 (95 % CI: 2–30)
per 100,000 live births. The factors “urbanization and employment in the service sector”
and “economic wealth” were not significantly related to infant mortality.
Conclusion
The study findings suggested that, at the population level, infant mortality was associated
with an industrial environment. Strategies to improve working conditions and reduce
industrial pollution might contribute to a reduction in infant mortality in Poland.
