Ebook: Understanding and Using Tuberculosis Data

Country health information systems provide a rich source of data on the burden of diseasecaused by tuberculosis (TB) and the effectiveness of programmatic efforts to reduce thisburden both of which are crucial for public health action. However the available dataare often underused or not used at all. At least in part this may reflect the absence ofclear guidance on recommended approaches to the analysis of such data. This handbookis designed to address this gap through detailed practical examples of the analysis of TBsurveillance data in particular TB notification data data from surveillance of anti-TB drugresistance and mortality data compiled in national vital registration systems. It starts fromthe most basic kinds of analyses and progresses to the description of more challengingtopics such as the estimation of disease burden using multiple sources of evidence includingdata from special surveys.