The temporal trend of tuberculosis burden in an aging population in China: a secondary data analysis from the GBD...

The rapid population aging in China has been a big challenge to achieve the goal of ending the global tuberculosis (TB) epidemic. This study aimed to describe the temporal trend of TB burden in China during 1990 ∼ 2019 and to evaluate the effect of age, period, and birth cohort on domestic TB burden, with a specific focus on the elderly.

The trends of incidence, mortality, and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) of TB among human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) negative people were described using the data from the Global Burden of Disease 2019 study. Join-point regression model was applied to calculate the average annual percentage change (AAPC) of TB burden for different age groups. Age-period-cohort (APC) model was fitted for incidence and mortality, and relative risks (RR) were computed for each age group.

In 2019, the highest TB deaths (5.23 thousand, 95% uncertainty interval [UI]: 4.38 ∼ 6.17) and DALYs (155.18 thousand, 95%UI: 126.47 ∼ 190.55) were observed in the HIV-negative population aged 70 ∼ 74 years in China. The proportion of those aged ≥ 60 years in newly diagnosed TB patients without HIV coinfection increased from 23.82% in 1990 to 37.54% in 2019, while TB deaths rose from 48.70 to 68.64%. During the past 30 years, the AAPC of age-standardized mortality (-7.77, confidence interval [CI]: -8.44∼ -7.10) and DALYs (-7.48, 95% CI: -7.98∼ -6.97) among HIV-negative individuals have shown a decrease, while much slower in the age groups above 70-year-old. The period effect and cohort effect contributed to the decline of TB incidence and mortality, but the age effect led to increasing TB mortality, especially among the ages of 85 ∼ 89 years (RR = 4.59, 95% CI: 4.25 ∼ 4.95).

The burden of TB remains considerable in the elderly population in China. More actions should be taken to improve case finding and the quality of TB healthcare for this high-risk population.