Sociodemographic determinants of tuberculosis burden in India

Introduction: Tuberculosis (TB), the eighth common cause of disability-adjusted life years in India, is a major problem for public health. Social factors such as economic condition and smoking have been implicated among the risk factors for TB. This paper reports the role of different sociodemographic factors in deciding the burden of TB in India. Materials and Methods: In an ecological approach, data from major national surveys were analyzed: National Family Health Survey 4, Global Adult Tobacco Survey 2, and India: Health of the Nation’s States. Spearman correlation coefficient and multivariate linear regression were used for state-wise analysis. Results: North India seems to be the major contributor to the national TB burden. Several factors such as the use of clean fuel, tobacco use, and economic condition were seen to impact TB burden. On multivariate analysis, only clean fuel was found to be significant (r = −0.540, P = 0.002). Conclusion: A multi-pronged approach for appropriate policy decisions for focussing on sociodemographic factors is the need of the hour for reducing the mortality burden due to TB.