Date of Conferral

2020

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Public Health

Advisor

Srikanta Banerjee

Abstract

For more than two decades, tuberculosis (TB) has ranked second among the top killers of infectious diseases, with an estimated 10.4 million incident cases in 2018. Demographic characteristics and drug susceptibility influence TB incidence worldwide. Using a retrospective cohort design, the purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate whether race/ethnicity, age, sex (gender), therapy completion within one year (COT), and testing for isoniazid and rifampin susceptibility (TIRS) were predictors of 672 cases of TB in New York-Newark-Jersey City from 1993 to 2017. Guided by the epidemiological triad theory, this research was conducted using a secondary TB dataset from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Analysis of the data with the Poisson regression model on SPSS revealed that Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians were respectively 2.4 (95% Cl, 2.364 to 2.512, p < 0.001), 2.1 (95% Cl, 2.031 to 2.161; p < 0.001), 1.8 (95% Cl, 1.782 to 1.899; p < 0.001) times as likely to have TB compared to Whites. Younger age was significantly associated with higher incident cases of TB. Males were 1.58 (95% Cl, 1.554 to 1.613, p < 0.001) times more likely than females to have the disease. The COT and TIRS were 0.175 (95% Cl, 0.170 to 0.180, p < 0.001) and 2.935 (95% Cl, 2.853 to 3.019, p < 0.001) times as likely to impact the TB incident cases in New York-Newark-Jersey City from 1993 to 2017. The findings of this research may create positive social change by informing public health professionals in the design of an effective TB intervention that addresses demographic and therapy-related risk factors for TB in New York-Newark-Jersey City.

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