Social Capital and Risk of Tuberculosis in Elderly Population

Abstract

Background: In Japan, two-thirds of newly notified tuberculosis (TB) cases were older than 65 years. A large part of TB in elderly are attributable to endogenous reactivation from past infection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and risk factors of reactivation are not clearly known. We explored potential social capital and risk of developing TB in elderly population. Method: Information regarding social capital among the general elderly persons were collected directly from the dataset of the Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study (JAGES) project. The same information was collected from the elderly TB patients through a questionnaire survey, which was developed specifically for this study, by extracting 26 questions related to TB and social capital from the original JAGES questionnaire. The survey was sent to TB patients who were 65 years old or older and who were not receiving special care for the aged at the time of TB diagnosis. Results: As of the end of 2019, we had received responses from 60 TB patients. We compared the data from TB patients with JAGES data (N=180,021) as a control. Among 60 TB patients, 75% were males, 25% were females. After adjustment with age, sex, BMI and smoking status, having no hobby (OR 2.6, 95%CI 1.4-4.8), going out less than 3 times a week (OR 2.6, 95%CI 1.4-4.6), living alone (OR 2.4, 95%CI 1.2-4.8) and having started work within a year (OR4.2, 95%CI 1.6-10.8) were associated with TB patients. Conclusion: Some factors related to social capital may influence developing TB in elderly population.



Author Information
Kazuhiro Uchimura, The Research Institute of Tuberculosis, Japan
Lisa Kawatsu, The Research Institute of Tuberculosis, Japan

Paper Information
Conference: AGen2020
Stream: Aging and Gerontology

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Posted by James Alexander Gordon