CHDS faculty Nicolas Menzies and his team found disparities in tuberculosis (TB) incidence rates when analyzing US data by racial and ethnic groups and by gender. Although previous studies have described racial/ethnic disparities in TB in the overall US population, few have examined TB rates specifically among the US-born population. Most cases of TB in the US are now among people born outside the US so studies of overall TB reflect the risk of TB in foreign-born people’s countries of origin, as well as among racial and ethnic populations of US-born people.
TB disease may develop many years after initial infection, and transmission is concentrated in close contacts such as households and social contacts. Therefore, the accumulative effects of differences in demographic, social, and medical factors contribute to racial/ethnic disparities in TB incidence among the US-born population. In this study, the team looked at data for the period 2011-2021 of reported TB disease in US-born people and analyzed trends in incidence rates by race/ethnicity and by gender and age within racial & ethnic groups. They found substantial disparities in TB incidence in the US, especially among American Indian & Alaskan Native people, particularly females and younger persons, relative to the overall US-born population.
Learn more: Read the Harvard Chan press release, Racial, Ethnic Disparities Persist in U.S. Tuberculosis Cases
Learn more: Read the full article, Disparities in Tuberculosis Incidence by Race and Ethnicity Among the U.S.-Born Population in the United States, 2011 to 2021
Learn more: Read about the Menzies Lab
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