BEHIND THE NUMBERS AND GRAPHS
are facts or trends that can shed additional light on the story of TB.
Epidemiology is the branch of healthcare that works to understand how diseases spread within communities. Apply your knowledge of graphing and functions (y = mx + b) using actual numbers drawn from TB research.
Tracking past, present and future disease trends is the role of an epidemiologist. Mathematical equations and graphs underlie their projections. Click on one of the buttons below to see trends in action.
World War I took place primarily between the years of 1914 and 1918. Many soldiers came home weary, hungry and sometimes sick. War conditions caused soldiers to live in extremely close quarters, reduced their consumption of iron (typically found in meat and fish) and generally weakened their health. We know this from stories the survivors told and from data collected by public health centers such as the Centers for Disease Control.
The amazing, life-saving power of the antibiotic penicillin was not lost on scientists as they battled tuberculosis. Antibiotics that specifically targeted unique structures in the TB bacteria became available to doctors in the 1940s. Streptomycin, one of the first TB antibiotics, is still the most commonly prescribed drug for TB treatment.
Until the 1980s, TB in the United States had been on the decline—a trend attributed in part to better living conditions, antibiotics and better overall healthcare. This trend was not so apparent in developing nations, however. Poverty, poor healthcare and the arrival of HIV/AIDS in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa have led to an almost unchecked increase in the number of TB cases.
