COOCCURRENCE OF AIDS AND TUBERCULOSIS - RESULTS OF A DATABASE MATCH AND INVESTIGATION

Purpose: To conduct a match between the AIDS and Tuberculosis (TB) Reg istries in Philadelphia. Methods: Database extracts for the year 1993 were prepared manually and matched by name, birth date, and social sec urity number. Reported cases not matching with those on the primary re gistry were investigated. Proportion levels of comorbidity were calcul ated. Predictors of comorbidity were evaluated separately for the TB s ample and for the AIDS sample. Results: The proportion of comorbid pat ients with AIDS alive at midyear was 4.7%; 17.1% of TB cases were also HN-positive. Twenty-three percent of AIDS cases were falsely reported as having active TB; the false-positive rate in TB Control for HIV se ropositivity was 4.2%. Having public or no health insurance, injection drug use (IDU) or heterosexual risk background (HET), and being nonwh ite and female were significant predictors of active TB in persons wit h AIDS. Conclusions: A registries' data match can provide useful infor mation and result in improved validity for both registries. Although w omen with AIDS initially appeared to have a higher risk of having acti ve TB, additional parallel analyses suggested that this effect was pri marily the result of the 1993 expansion of the definition of AIDS.