Reported tuberculosis in the United States, 2002

Reports of tuberculosis (TB) cases are submitted to the Division of TB Elimination (DTBE), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), by 60 reporting areas (the 50 states, the District of Columbia, New York City, Puerto Rico, and other jurisdictions in the Pacific and Caribbean). In January 1993, DTBE, in conjunction with state and local health departments, implemented an expanded TB surveillance system. The expanded system collects additional information for each reported TB case in order to better monitor trends in TB, including drug resistant TB, in the United States. A software package (SURVS-TB) for data entry, analysis, and transmission of case reports to CDC was designed and implemented as part of the expanded TB surveillance system. In 1998, the Tuberculosis Information Management System (TIMS) replaced SURVS-TB.This publication, Reported Tuberculosis in the United States, 2002, presents summary data for TB cases reported to DTBE during 2002. It is similar to previous publications (page 5, #19) and contains six major sections. The first section presents trends in the overall TB case counts and case rates by selected demographic and clinical characteristics. The second section presents overall case counts and case rates for the United States by selected demographic characteristics for 2002. In the third section, TB case counts and case rates are presented by state with tables of selected demographic and clinical characteristics. In the fourth section, data collected as part of the expanded system (e.g., initial drug resistance, HIV status) are presented by reporting area. The fifth section provides TB case counts and case rates by metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs: see Technical Notes, Appendix A, for further details) with tables of selected demographic and clinical characteristics. Finally, the sixth section presents figures from the annual surveillance slide set, which emphasize key recent trends in TB epidemiology in the United States. The slides with accompanying text can also be viewed and downloaded from the Division Home Page which is accessible via the Internet: www.cdc.gov/nchstp/tb2003657