Prevalence of tuberculosis among college students in Dalian city,2010-2015

Objective To describe the characteristics and trend in tuberculosis (TB) incidence among college students in Dalian city and to provide bases for making control strategy in the students.Methods Data on registered TB cases among college students in Dalian city between 2010 and 2015 were extracted from National Information System for TB Registration and Management and Dalian Municipal Tuberculosis Hospital and analyzed statistically.Results The reported average annual TB incidence was 48.19/100 000 among the students,with the yearly incidence of 54.93,55.14,43.15,41.94,44.74,and 50.33 per 100 000 population,respectively,and no significant change in the incidence was observed during the 6-year period (χ²=2.456,P>0.05).The average reported annual incidence was 6.19/100 000 for smear-positive TB and the proportion of smear-positive was 12.85% among the reported TB cases among the students.The ages of reported cases ranged from 16 to 30 years,with an average age of 21.09 years and a male to female ratio of 2.61:1.More TB cases were reported in the second quarter of a year and almost all the registered TB cases (97.18%) were initially treated and the majority (74.52%)of the registered cases were smear-negative.There was a significant change trend in both the incidence of sporadic TB cases (with the annual incidences of 49.9,47.3,41.8,35.6,34.6,and 38.67 per 100 000 population)(χ²=10.318,P<0.05) and the incidence of secondary cluster TB cases (with the annual incidences of 5.0,7.9,1.3,6.4,10.1,and 11.7 per 100 000 population)(χ²=13.097,P<0.05).Conclusion The reported TB incidence did not changed significantly but the aggregation TB epidemic increased significantly among college students in Dalian city between 2010 to 2015,suggesting that health education on TB control needs to be promoted among the students.