Descriptive and Analytic Epidemiology – Tuberculosis

Descriptive and Analytic Epidemiology – Tuberculosis

Discuss the pattern and distribution of the disease in the population of your state as well as subgroups within the state

Tuberculosis (TB) is a highly contagious disease and is potentially life-threatening. While TB can affect any part of the body, such as the spine, kidneys, or the brain, it oftentimes affects the lungs. When a person is first infected with the bacterium, a person will feel sick and may not exhibit any symptoms. However, in the future, such a person can develop the disease (Vos et al., 2018).

Although TB can be prevented and cured, it was, at one time, the leading cause of death in the US. In Illinois, there are less than 30 deaths per annum, which are linked to TB, and in the last year. The number of reported cases has decreased by over 40% in the last decade to reach 320 in 2014.  The rate of TB cases in Chicago was 4.2 for every 100,000 people, which was higher than the entire country’s average of 2.8 per the same number of people. In 2018, 63% of persons diagnosed with TB were between the ages of 25-64 years. Persons aged 64 years and above comprised 29% of those diagnosed with incident TB. Among children below the age of 5 years, the cases decreased by 50% between 2016 and 2018 (Chicago Department of Health, 2018).

Additionally, in 2018, the highest number of those reported with TB was non-Hispanic Blacks at 32%, while Hispanic and non-Hispanic Asians were both at 30%. Non-Hispanic Whites accounted for 9% of the reported cases. The reported cases among Asians were 5 times higher than the non-Hispanic and Hispanic Blacks at 4.2 and 4.4 cases for every 100,000 persons, respectively (Chicago Department of Health, 2018).

What recommendations would you make to your administrator based on your findings?

The first recommendation is tailoring the TB control efforts to the needs at the local level, and this means developing epidemiological profiles that will help identify the most vulnerable group (Uplekar et al., 2018). Secondly, preventive therapy that follows screening should be restricted to areas that have adequate activities regarding contact tracing and substantial rates of completion of therapy. Thirdly, TB screening should be targeted at persons who are at the highest risk of infection, can be accessed for screening, and have a high likelihood of completing preventive therapy. Fourthly, programs for controlling TB should have their efforts directed toward the identification of TB diagnosis and care impediments. Lastly, there should be collaborative efforts made with the Community-based Organizations, which should focus on the development of roles that are more complementary, more effective service coordination and the use of existing resources that are more enhanced. This collaboration will also involve coordination of services that are more effective and enhanced in the use of the already available resource for serving the vulnerable populations (Ainseba et al., 2017). Lastly, training on TB should be related to the overall strategies for controlling TB. Education and training should be targeted toward community workers, patients, and providers.

Describe the basic types of epidemiologic study designs that are used to test hypotheses, identify associations and establish causation.

Descriptive epidemiology is used in the identification of patterns among population cases by person, place, and time. Epidemiologists can, from these observations, develop hypotheses on the causes of the said patterns as well as the factors that enhance the disease risk. Thus, though epidemiologists can use descriptive epidemiology in generating hypotheses, it is rare that they actually test the same (Omair, 2015). Analytic epidemiology is used to test the hypotheses, where the search for how and why or the causes and effects is the driving factor for research (Webb, Pain, & Page, 2017). Analytic epidemiology is used in the quantification of the association between outcomes and exposures and in testing hypotheses on causal relationships. Epidemiology, on its own, cannot prove that a specific exposure resulted in a specific outcome. However, epidemiology often offers sufficient evidence that allows for appropriate control and measures of prevention to be taken.

References

Ainseba, B., Feng, Z., Iannelli, M., & Milner, F. A. (2017). Control strategies for TB epidemics. SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics, 77(1), 82-107.

Chicago Department of Health 2018). Healthy Chicago Reports. https://www.chicagohan.org/documents/14171/231109/2018+Tuberculosis+Annual+Surveillance+Report.pdf/6e2dfcdf-12fe-9167-973a-50b73a0c7b83?t=1575322192719

Omair, A. (2015). Selecting the appropriate study design for your research: Descriptive study designs. Journal of Health Specialties, 3(3), 153.

Uplekar, M., Weil, D., Lonnroth, K., Jaramillo, E., Lienhardt, C., Dias, H. M., … & Gilpin, C. (2015). WHO’s new end TB strategy. The Lancet, 385(9979), 1799-1801.

Voss, G., Casimiro, D., Neyrolles, O., Williams, A., Kaufmann, S. H., McShane, H., … & Fletcher, H. A. (2018). Progress and challenges in TB vaccine development. F1000Research, 7.

Webb, P., Bain, C., & Page, A. (2017). Essential epidemiology: an introduction for students and health professionals. Cambridge University Press.

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Descriptive epidemiology is used to evaluate trends in health and disease, make comparisons among the population and subgroups within countries, and provide a basis for planning, provision, and evaluation of services.

Descriptive and Analytic Epidemiology – Tuberculosis

As a health officer, you have been asked to collect information to characterize and summarize the tuberculosis epidemic in your state.

Write a paper in which you do the following:

Discuss the pattern and distribution of the disease in the population of your state as well as subgroups within the state.
What recommendations would you make to your administrator based on your findings?
Describe the basic types of epidemiologic study designs that are used to test hypotheses, identify associations and establish causation.
Be sure you support the essay with evidence from the literature.