Abstract:

Objective: To inform school tuberculosis (TB) prevention and control strategy developing by analyzing the characteristics of student TB cases in Jinghai District, Tianjin. Methods: Data on student tuberculosis patients in Jinghai District, Tianjin from 2018 to 2023 was collected through the National Infectious Disease Reporting System of the China Disease Control and Prevention Information System, including name, gender, age, registration time, area of onset, school, and diagnosis, etc. Descriptive epidemiological methods were used for statistical analysis. Results: A total of 136 active TB cases among students were notified from 2018 to 2023, with an average annual reported incidence of 16.61 per 100000 (136/818789), declined from 27.07 per 100000 (35/129304) in 2018 to 9.14 per 100000 (13/142188) in 2023. The differences in reported incidences across years were statistically significant ({\chi }_{trend}^2=23.830, P<0.05). Regarding temporal distribution, the highest numbers of cases were reported in April (26, 19.12%), September (16, 11.76%), and March (15, 11.03%). Geographically, Jinghai Town (34, 25.00%), Daqiuzhuang Town and Tuanbo Town (17, 12.50%), and Yangchengzhuang Township (13, 9.56%) reported the highest case numbers. In terms of population distribution, the reported incidence rates were 16.94 per 100000 (73/430944) for males and 16.24 per 100000 (63/387845) for females, no statistically significant difference was found between genders (χ²=0.060, P>0.05). Regarding educational stages, universities and higher vocational colleges (72, 52.94%) and high schools and secondary vocational schools (40, 29.41%) had the highest case numbers, the reported incidence rates were 1.78 per 100000 (6/337421) in primary schools, 10.51 per 100000 (18/171342) in junior high schools, 42.32 per 100000 (40/94507) in senior high schools and secondary vocational schools, and 33.41 per 100000 (72/215519) in universities and higher vocational schools, with statistically significant differences among incidences across educational stages (χ²=122.789, P<0.05). The numbers of etiologically positive and negative cases were 72 (52.94%) and 56 (41.18%), respectively, without statistically significant difference (χ²=23.869, P>0.05). Conclusion: April and September are the highest frequent period of reporting student TB cases. Jinghai Town, Daqiuzhuang Town, Tuanbo Town, and Yangchengzhuang Township are high-risk areas. High-risk educational stages are universities and higher vocational colleges and high schools and secondary vocational schools. The proportion of etiologically positive pulmonary TB cases is relatively high.

Key words: Students, Tuberculosis, pulmonary, Epidemiologic studies, Small-area analysis