Effectiveness of Postmigration Screening in Controlling Tuberculosis Among Refugees: A Historical Cohort Study, 1984-1998

This study assessed the effectiveness of postmigration screening for the control of tuberculosis (TB) among refugee migrants. We conducted a historical cohort study among 24 610 predominantly Southeast Asian refugees who had arrived in Sydney, Australia, between 1984 and 1994. All had been screened...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inAmerican journal of public health (1971) Vol. 91; no. 11; pp. 1797 - 1799
Main Authors Marks, Guy B, Bai, Jun, Stewart, Gregory J, Simpson, Sheila E, Sullivan, Elizabeth A
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Washington, DC Am Public Health Assoc 01.11.2001
American Public Health Association
American Journal of Public Health 2001
Subjects
Asia, Southeastern - ethnology
Australia
Biological and medical sciences
Cohort analysis
Cohort Studies
Control
Disease Notification
Effectiveness
Humans
Incidence
Mass Chest X-Ray - statistics & numerical data
Medical Record Linkage
Medical sciences
Mycobacterium tuberculosis
New South Wales - epidemiology
Prevention and actions
Program Evaluation
Public Health Administration
Public health. Hygiene
Public health. Hygiene-occupational medicine
Refugees
Refugees - statistics & numerical data
Reproducibility of Results
Sensitivity and Specificity
South east Asian people
Specific populations (family, woman, child, elderly...)
Sydney
Tuberculin Test - statistics & numerical data
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis - drug therapy
Tuberculosis - epidemiology
Tuberculosis - prevention & control
Australia
Oceania
Human
Evaluation
Sanitary program
Asiatic
Immigrant
Refugee
Mycobacterial infection
Medical screening
Infection
Tuberculosis
Follow up study
Cohort study
Bacteriosis
Public health
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Summary:This study assessed the effectiveness of postmigration screening for the control of tuberculosis (TB) among refugee migrants. We conducted a historical cohort study among 24 610 predominantly Southeast Asian refugees who had arrived in Sydney, Australia, between 1984 and 1994. All had been screened for TB before arrival and had radiologic follow-up for 18 months after arrival. Incident cases of TB were identified by record linkage analysis with confirmatory review of case notes. The crude annual incidence rate over 10-year follow-up was 74.9 per 100 000 person-years. Only 29.6% of the cases were diagnosed as a result of routine follow-up procedures. Enhanced passive case finding is likely to be more effective than active case finding for the control of TB among refugees.
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G. B. Marks designed the study, contributed to the analysis, and wrote the paper. J. Bai undertook the data collection and linkage analysis and contributed to the data analysis and writing of the paper. G. J. Stewart, S. E. Simpson, and E. A. Sullivan contributed to the design, interpretation, and supervision of the study and to the writing of the paper.
Peer Reviewed
Requests for reprints should be sent to Guy B. Marks, PhD, FRACP, Chest Clinic, Liverpool Hospital, PO Box 103, NSW 2170 Australia (e-mail: g.marks@unsw.edu.au).
ISSN:0090-0036
1541-0048
DOI:10.2105/AJPH.91.11.1797