Using routinely reported tuberculosis genotyping and surveillance data to predict tuberculosis outbreaks

We combined routinely reported tuberculosis (TB) patient characteristics with genotyping data and measures of geospatial concentration to predict which small clusters (i.e., consisting of only 3 TB patients) in the United States were most likely to become outbreaks of at least 6 TB cases. Of 146 clu...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2012-11, Vol.7 (11), p.e48754-e48754
Main Authors: Althomsons, Sandy P, Kammerer, J Steven, Shang, Nong, Navin, Thomas R
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Alcohol Drinking
Alcohols
Analysis
Candidates
Cluster analysis
Cohort analysis
Decision Trees
Development and progression
Disease control
Disease Outbreaks
Disease prevention
Drug abuse
Drug Users
Epidemics
Forecasting
Genotype
Genotype & phenotype
Genotyping
Homeless people
Homelessness
Ill-Housed Persons
Infections
Medical diagnosis
Medical research
Medicine
Mycobacterium tuberculosis
Mycobacterium tuberculosis - genetics
Outbreaks
Patients
Prisons
Public health
Retrospective Studies
Risk Factors
Substance abuse
Surveillance
Trends
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis - epidemiology
Tuberculosis - transmission
United States
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:We combined routinely reported tuberculosis (TB) patient characteristics with genotyping data and measures of geospatial concentration to predict which small clusters (i.e., consisting of only 3 TB patients) in the United States were most likely to become outbreaks of at least 6 TB cases. Of 146 clusters analyzed, 16 (11.0%) grew into outbreaks. Clusters most likely to become outbreaks were those in which at least 1 of the first 3 patients reported homelessness or excess alcohol or illicit drug use or was incarcerated at the time of TB diagnosis and in which the cluster grew rapidly (i.e., the third case was diagnosed within 5.3 months of the first case). Of 17 clusters with these characteristics and therefore considered high risk, 9 (53%) became outbreaks. This retrospective cohort analysis of clusters in the United States suggests that routinely reported data may identify small clusters that are likely to become outbreaks and which are therefore candidates for intensified contact investigations.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0048754