PSAs targeting ear infections should be on the rise --as middle-ear infections among preschoolers have risen sharply in the 1990s, a report based on government surveys in 1995 and 1996 suggests. The surveys used interviews with parents to check for recurrent cases of otitis media, and some scientists suggested that method might be flawed.
Because parents might have been more aware of symptoms of ear infections in the late 1990s than earlier, the condition might have been diagnosed more often, they said.
The surveys found that recurrent ear infections rose from 18.7 percent of all preschoolers in 1991 to 26 percent in 1998, according to a report in the journal Pediatrics, published on the Internet.
If the infection rate is rising, as the surveys indicate, widespread use of daycare centers may be part of the reason, because children are exposed to more viruses and bacteria in large centers full of children than they would be in their own homes. (Department of Health and Human Services, 202/619-0257)