Association of social deprivation and outdoor air pollution with pulmonary tuberculosis in spatiotemporal analysis

ABSTRACT

The objective of this study was to identify the association between social deprivation, outdoor air pollution, and tuberculosis (TB) incidence rate or mortality rate. The study sample comprised 25 districts in Seoul, Korea. We used two public data derived from the Community Health Survey and Seoul Statistics. The geographic information system analysis and random effects Poisson regression were applied to explore the association of social deprivation and air pollution with TB incidence and mortality. An 1 ppb increase in sulfur dioxide (SO₂) concentration was significantly associated with the risk of TB incidence (risk ratio [RR] = 1.046, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.028, 1.065). An 1 unit increase in the deprivation index was significantly related to a6% increase in the mortality of TB (RR = 1.063, 95% CI: 1.031, 1.097). : Our results imply that social deprivation and air pollution may affect the different TB outcomes. Effective policy-making for TB control should reflect the differing outcomes between TB incidence and mortality.

KEYWORDS:

• Social deprivation
• outdoor air pollution
• tuberculosis
• spatiotemporal analysis

Acknowledgments

We wish to thank the study participants for their dedication and this work was supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea through the National Research Foundation of Korea (2016S1A3A2923475).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.