Spatiotemporal pattern and factors related to childhood tuberculosis

Patrón espacio-temporal y factores relacionados con la tuberculosis en la infancia

Aim:  To identify the spatiotemporal pattern of childhood tuberculosis and the sociodemographic factors related to it.

Method:  This is an ecological study, which used the municipalities of the state of Ceará as units of analysis. The Notifiable Diseases Information System was used as a data source from January 2001 to December 2017. It was conducted a descriptive analysis of the characteristics of the cases, the temporal and spatial pattern of the incidence of the disease and regression with sociodemographic indicators.

Results:  An average incidence of 3.48 cases/100 thousand inhabitants was identified, with a reduction of 5.7% during the period 2003-2017 (p<0.001). The following were related to childhood tuberculosis: proportion of the population in households with piped water (β=0.05), proportion of the population in households with density >2 (β=0.09) and number of female heads of household with children under 15 years of age (β=0.0003).

Conclusion:  Indicators of housing conditions and vulnerability were related to childhood tuberculosis.

Keywords:
Tuberculosis; Child; Adolescent; Epidemiology; Spatial analysis