Chronic bronchitis and bronchial asthma in a rural community in Israel: relation to socioenvironmental factors.

Prevalence rates of chronic bronchitis and asthma in a rural community in Israel in 1976 were 2.5 and 2.1%, respectively. The relationships with age, sex, country of origin, marital status, number of children, household crowding, education, occupation and cigarette-smoking habits were studied. A number of significant univariate associations were found. A multiple regression analysis showed a significant independent association between chronic bronchitis and age. Age alone accounted for 4.6% of the variance in chronic bronchitis. Five other variables were significantly associated with chronic bronchitis. Together, these accounted for an additional 1.3% of the variance in chronic bronchitis. The multivariate analysis showed that only one variable--the number of children--had an independent relationship with asthma. It accounted for 0.8% of the variance. All the variables together accounted for 1.3% of the variance observed in bronchial asthma.