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Date of Award

2012

Document Type

Thesis - Pacific Access Restricted

Degree Name

Master of Science (M.S.)

Department

Biological Sciences

First Advisor

Craig A. Vierra

First Committee Member

Geoff Lin-Cereghino

Second Committee Member

Mouchumi Bhattacharyya

Third Committee Member

Karen Pfister

Fourth Committee Member

Dennis V. Ferrero

Abstract

Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the most deadly diseases worldwide. In the United States, TB disproportionately affects foreign-born individuals, individuals living in congregate settings, people with human immunodeficiency virus, and people who use illicit drugs. In 2005, a large homeless shelter outbreak in San Joaquin County resulted in 67 individuals diagnosed with TB with links to a homeless shelter. It is hypothesized that by using bed analysis to identify contacts that have been exposed to TB during this outbreak will allow for better identification of exposed high-risk individuals than screening alone. Demographics, exposure, screening, and QuantiFERON-Tuberculosis results were analyzed using bed assignments from the homeless shelter database and data from a homeless shelter screening (HSS) program. Individuals diagnosed with active TB disease were on average more likely to be identified through bed analysis than HSS, 95.08% versus 59.02%. Utilizing both bed analysis and HSS allows for improvement of identification and continuous testing of individuals exposed to TB.

Pages

60

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