Tuberculosis and diabetes: probabilistic linkage of databases to study the association between both diseases

Epidemiol Serv Saude. 2017 Apr-Jun;26(2):359-368. doi: 10.5123/S1679-49742017000200013.
[Article in English, Portuguese]

Abstract

Objective: to describe the profile of cases of tuberculosis and diabetes comorbidity in Brazil.

Methods: this is a descriptive study with data from the Brazilian Information System for Notifiable Diseases - tuberculosis (Sinan-TB) and from the System of Registration and Monitoring of Hypertension and Diabetes Mellitus (Hiperdia), from 2007 to 2011; probabilistic linkage was carried out with Reclink software.

Results: 24,443 cases of comorbidity were found, including 3,181 cases not registered on Sinan-TB; of the total number of recovered cases, mostly were males (57.2%), aged 40-59 years (52.3%), black/brown-skinned (68.4%), with five to eight years of schooling (78.4%), with no regular use of alcohol (86.5%) and negative serology for the HIV virus (91.8%).

Conclusion: the cases found had similar profile to those registered on Sinan-TB and the probabilistic linkage of data from different information systems enabled the detection of cases not captured by surveillance.

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Brazil / epidemiology
  • Databases, Factual
  • Diabetes Mellitus / epidemiology*
  • Female
  • HIV Infections / epidemiology*
  • Humans
  • Information Systems
  • Male
  • Medical Record Linkage*
  • Middle Aged
  • Tuberculosis / epidemiology*
  • Young Adult