Tuberculosis

Introduction

Tuberculosis (TB) is a global public health concern with a distinct geography. Worldwide, 1/3 of the global population is infected, with an overwhelming majority of those individuals residing in developing countries. In Canada, despite our low national infection rate of 6 per 100,000 people per year, tuberculosis incidence rates are high amongst disadvantaged populations residing in poorer urban neighbourhoods and within immigrant communities, with approximately 2000 persons with active TB living in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, Canada's poorest neighbourhood.

Using a range of GIS, spatial statistics, and spatial analysis tools, this project seeks to more accurately describe the spatial epidemiology of tuberculosis in Greater Vancouver (pop. 2.1M). Our goals are to not only visualize the current geography of tuberculosis, but also to develop and validate socio-economic factor weightings for risk of tuberculosis such that preventative and treatment resources are efficiently allocated.

Based on a broader research initiative concerning the spatial epidemiology of tuberculosis in BC ongoing at the BC Centre for Disease control, this spatial extension of the project focuses on the geographic distributions of patients and their demography, and the application of spatial statistics to the spatial-temporal pattern and epidemiological clustering of TB in the Lower Mainland.