ACUTE RESPIRATORY DISEASES AMONG SCHOOL CHILDREN IN THE CONNECTION TO THE AIR POLLUTION
The ambient air in Zenica being heavily polluted under the influence of the dirty metallurgic technologies in this town caused the great risk to the respiratory diseases on its citizens. The task of this work was to investigate the possible correlation of the morbidity in non-specific acute respiratory diseases among school children of 7 to 14 yeas of age, with mean concentrations of sulfur dioxide (S02) in ambient air of the two towns Zenica and Zavidovići. The retro-prospective study was established in the two groups of school children exposed and nonexposed to the air pollution within the period between 1987. and 1999. There were followed the incidence of acute non-specific respiratory diseases in the comparison to the levels of air pollution. In statistical analysis it was found that there is the positive degree of the level of +0,727369 in the correlation between the quarterly mean concentrations of the S02 in the ambient air and the incidence of the non-specific respiratory diseases; there were the linear ups of the incidence of the diseases parallel with the linear ups of the concentrations of the S02, statistically expressed like: 0<R<+1. The marked connection was found between the incidence of acute non-specific respiratory diseases among school children and the mean concentrations of S02 in ambient air of the two towns.