Elsevier

Respiratory Medicine

Volume 106, Issue 3, March 2012, Pages 467-471
Respiratory Medicine

Short communication
Chronic bronchitis in the general population: Influence of age, gender and socio-economic conditions

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rmed.2011.12.002Get rights and content
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Summary

Chronic bronchitis (CB) is an indicator of an increased risk of developing COPD, but its symptoms are often underestimated. Demographic and socio-economic conditions might influence its prevalence, reporting and impact.

Data from a large epidemiological survey of the French general population were analyzed to determine the burden of CB, the magnitude of under-diagnosis and the influence of age, gender and socio-economic conditions. Altogether, 9050 participants aged 45 years or more provided complete data.

The prevalence of symptoms and diagnosis of CB was 3.5% and 3.4%, respectively. CB was associated with impaired health status and activity and, in women, work loss. Among subjects with symptoms of CB, only 28.6% declared a known diagnosis of respiratory disease. Factors associated with symptoms of CB in multivariate analysis were male gender, active smoking, lower income and occupational category: the highest prevalence was observed in manual workers (5.6%) and self-employed subjects (5.2%). The under-diagnosis of CB was more marked in men and subjects of higher socio-economic categories.

These results confirm that CB is markedly under-diagnosed in the general population. Socio-economic conditions influence both its prevalence (higher in low categories) and rate of diagnosis (lower in high categories), which should be considered when elaborating prevention and detection campaigns.

Keywords

Chronic bronchitis
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
Socio-economic conditions
Prevalence
General population
Gender

Cited by (0)

1

Alexis Ferré and Claire Fuhrman participated equally to the study.