Volume 26, Number 3—March 2020
Research
US Tuberculosis Rates among Persons Born Outside the United States Compared with Rates in Their Countries of Birth, 2012–20161
, Adam J. Langer, J. Steve Kammerer, and Thomas R. Navin
Table 1
TB rates in the United States, by country of birth, 2012–2016, compared with World Health Organization rates, 2014, for the 20 countries with the highest TB counts in the United States *
| COB | Average annual no. cases | Estimated population† | Rate by years since US arrival |
Overall US rate by COB | WHO rate (95% CI)‡ | IRR (95% CI)§ | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| <1 | 1 to <10 | >10 | ||||||
| Mexico | 1,262.2 | 11,851,810 | 103.0 | 11.7 | 7.9 | 10.6 | 21 (16–27) | 2.0 (1.5–2.5) |
| Philippines | 788.4 | 2,048,557 | 297.4 | 42.5 | 26.8 | 38.5 | 54 (304–859) | 14.2 (7.9–22.3) |
| India | 537 | 2,235,594 | 117.1 | 24.1 | 14.1 | 24.0 | 223 (136–332) | 9.3 (5.7–13.8) |
| Vietnam | 487.2 | 1,340,215 | 290.7 | 46.8 | 23.8 | 36.4 | 140 (111–173) | 3.9 (3.1–4.8 |
| China | 393.2 | 1,966,551 | 56.8 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 20.0 | 68 (58–78) | 3.4 (2.9–3.9) |
| Guatemala | 193.4 | 929,637 | 220.9 | 30.4 | 8.6 | 20.8 | 25 (19–31) | 1.2 (0.9–1.5) |
| Haiti | 174.8 | 661,301 | 311.9 | 37.3 | 13.9 | 26.4 | 200 (154–253) | 7.6 (5.8–9.6) |
| Ethiopia | 151.8 | 222,559 | 623.8 | 80.4 | 24.5 | 68.2 | 207 (134–295) | 3.0 (2.0–4.3) |
| Honduras | 135.8 | 594,066 | 231.3 | 25.2 | 10.9 | 22.9 | 40 (30–50) | 1.7 (1.3–2.2) |
| Myanmar | 113.8 | 129,594 | 707.3 | 76.5 | 15.8 | 87.8 | 369 (269–484) | 4.2 (3.1–5.5) |
| El Salvador | 107.4 | 1,330,323 | 87.4 | 11.8 | 4.8 | 8.1 | 44 (34–56) | 5.5 (4.2–6.9) |
| Somalia | 96.2 | 85,871 | 1,033.9 | 105.6 | 51.0 | 112.0 | 274 (177–391) | 2.4 (1.6–3.5) |
| Nepal | 83.4 | 108,099 | 439.5 | 67.6 | 24.4 | 77.2 | 158 (139–178) | 2.0 (1.8–2.3) |
| Peru | 82.2 | 450,546 | 228.9 | 28.6 | 11.3 | 18.2 | 121 (93–153) | 6.6 (5.1–8.4) |
| Pakistan | 80.8 | 368,845 | 178.1 | 20.4 | 13.9 | 21.9 | 270 (175–386) | 12.3 (8.0–17.6) |
| Cambodia | 75.2 | 161,226 | 187.4 | 39.1 | 36.0 | 46.6 | 390 (252–557) | 8.4 (5.4–11.9) |
| Laos | 72.4 | 192,908 | 96.5 | 46.6 | 29.7 | 37.5 | 189 (122–270) | 5.0 (3.3–7.2) |
| Ecuador | 72.2 | 439,795 | 127.8 | 27.4 | 9.4 | 16.4 | 41 (31–51) | 2.5 (1.9–3.1) |
| Nigeria | 68.4 | 289,679 | 242.3 | 28.5 | 8.1 | 23.6 | 219 (143–311) | 9.3 (6.1–13.2) |
| Dominican Republic | 66.4 | 1,064,665 | 55.2 | 7.4 | 4.0 | 6.2 | 53 (41–67) | 8.5 (6.6–10.7) |
*Although South Korea has an average annual number of 97.4 cases, it is not listed in the table because the ACS does not provide a population estimate for South Korea. ACS, US Census Bureau American Community Survey; COB, country of birth; IRR, incidence rate ratio; TB, tuberculosis; US, United States, WHO, World Health Organization.
†ACS Public Use Microdata Sample data, 2012–2016 multiyear file, https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/data/pums.html.
‡World Health Organization TB burden estimates, https://www.who.int/tb/country/data/download/en/.
§Rate in country (WHO rate) divided by overall US rate by COB. An IRR >1.0 indicates that the WHO rate is larger than the US rate.
1Preliminary results from this study were presented at the Union–North America Region conference, 2019 Feb 21–23, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; and at the National TB Conference, 2019 Apr 23–26, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.