Association between early bacterial carriage and otitis media in Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal children in a semi-arid area of Western Australia: a cohort study

Table 4 Association between carriage of Streptococcus pneumoniae, nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae, Moraxella catarrhalis and Staphylococcus aureus individually or any of the otopathogens at age 1- < 3 months and subsequent type B tympanogram adjusting for age and sex, presence of other bacteria, and environmental factors

Adjusted factors	Aboriginality	Any otopathogen^a	S. pneumoniae	M. catarrhalis	H. influenzae	S. aureus
Adjusted factors		OR (95%CI)^b	OR (95%CI)	OR (95%CI)	OR (95%CI)	OR (95%CI)
Sex and Age only	Aboriginal	2.21 (0.91-5.42)	1.16 (0.55-2.17)	1.60 (0.74-3.48)	4.58 (1.98–10.59)	0.61 (0.27-1.39)
Sex and Age only	Non-Aboriginal	1.36 (0.84-2.22)	1.59 (0.87-2.91)	1.42 (0.86-2.34)	0.97 (0.32–2.97)	0.92 (0.57-1.48)
Presence of other bacteria	Aboriginal	2.07 (0.82-5.22)	0.67 (0.33-1.38)	1.63 (0.79-3.36)	5.51 (2.41-12.58)	0.51 (0.24-1.09)
Presence of other bacteria	Non-Aboriginal	1.36 (0.83-2.21)	0.86 (0.29-2.58)	1.28 (0.73-2.26)	1.48 (0.75-2.93)	0.97 (0.60-1.55)
Environmental factors ^c	Aboriginal	1.56 (0.51-4.74)	0.99 (0.43-2.27)	0.68 (0.23-1.98)	4.31 (1.64-11.32)	0.61 (0.25-1.54)
Environmental factors ^c	Non-Aboriginal	1.12 (0.66-1.88)	1.33 (0.75-2.37)	1.16 (0.66-2.05)	0.90 (0.27-3.02)	0.90 (0.52-1.55)
All confounders	Aboriginal	1.56 (0.52-4.68)	0.66 (0.32-1.36)	0.99 (0.33-2.93)	5.35 (1.97-14.87)	0.45 (0.18-1.13)
All confounders	Non-Aboriginal	1.11 (0.60-1.87)	1.31 (0.70-2.43)	1.09 (0.60-2.00)	0.83 (0.24-2.90)	0.92 (0.54-1.58)

All associations adjusted for sex, age, age² and where tympanometry was conducted (field or clinic).
^a Any otopathogen includes one or more of S. pneumoniae, nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae and Moraxella catarrhalis.
^b Odds ratio and 95% confidence interval comparing the odds of having a type B tympanograms between those who carried the respective organisms at age 1- < 3 months and those who did not.
^c Environmental factors are: passive smoking, crowding, other children living in the house and also exclusive breast-feeding at 6–8 weeks.

ISSN: 1471-2334