In Black America; Tuberculosis Among African Americans

fb haitian citizens from the longhorn radio network the university of texas at austin this is in black america you don't hear a lot about tuberculosis as dr adams the squeaky wheel gets the grease and i think we need to squeak a little bit more so we can get low mortgage rates to spread around local news daytona health department tb programs are primarily funded from dallas texas is very lucky texas is one of the few states that commits a large

amount of state funds to tuberculosis treatment so you're very important year in texas a lot of other states you primarily are dealing with federal funding and we're just not at the federal level getting their money's that we would like to get so we can dispense more to the states to fight this spill is the crew's tuberculosis control division the texas department of health tuberculosis infectious disease primarily affecting a person's lungs may spread of oregon's calling severe complications or death disease all preventable and you're both patients comply with physicians instructions and taken a prescribed medication the federal centers for disease control strategy plan for the elimination of tuberculosis in this nation as a goal of ninety nine percent reduction in tuberculosis by the year two thousand ten although they're kurds of tb in this country has to kind of the past thirty five years today at be among non hispanic whites as primarily a disease of the elderly

among minority in his primary castrated and young adults i'm danielle hansen jr and welcome to another edition of that black america this week fighting tuberculosis in the african american community and black america again again again again a person should go to the local health department state of texas provides medications to walk through the local help parmesan and crafts was private physicians to care for tuberculosis patients there will be a cost of medication for treatment his patients not by the patient so i think that the first thing you do is to see cantaloupe farm and let them know where whitey there and let them assess troops or forces as need and let them take care of providing that need because we provide to local health former the kind of of tools they need to take your that patient so a person's income is mater to zero you can receive care and

they wish on tuberculosis in most counties and most tangled webs in the charge i realize that in some areas there may be an initial fee some help farmers have an initial fee for admission into the system so forest care for that patient portals as medications evaluation there's no charge mr charles wallace assistant division director tuberculosis control the texas department of health before to work losses can be treated or cured it was first to recognize years ago when tv was a leading cause of death in this country is the lid off a suspect and patience today physicians and nurses and expansion of the marcoses we overlook the disease a nineteen eighty seven the media major non hispanic white with tuberculosis was sixty two years for minority pays and the median age was thirty nine years tuberculosis affects many persons those will develop disease symptoms sometimes failed to seek health care health officials are true that fact to a lack of understanding about how serious untreated tuberculosis can be

i hope this program we gave you a better understanding of tuberculosis recently i spoke with three experts on the subject of tb they are killers ie cruz joyce palin and charles was all with the texas department of health one thing you can say is a tuberculosis isn't like a bacterium and that that's not written down from a non scientific base but as a jam that spread through the air a primer and in a vicious who in a can situational condition where they can receive that we're infected air into the system and i think it's important to mention that the process of spring to rituals as primary again through air to breathe and it's infected by someone who has it but the great german bacteria and as a result of having it spread out through coughing sneezing singing and many other ways it can be transmitted through to hear what type of effect does this disease have won about our so nurses you breathe it and that has a devastating effect on your lungs as correct i think the primary

or area of concern when we look at this particular disease is it's impact on the lungs and most times when we see a person with their particular disease diagnosis and evaluations being palmer although it can occur in other parts of the body we most often seen as whitacre disease occurring within the marxist so it's and porno that the new things we see the coughing sneezing many of the other kinds of things that go along with governor infection can be at her as a result of fact of that decree rituals infection in the lungs is there any relationship a correlation with the disease a tribute to urban areas all areas and was there there's a large of smoke stack industry as i come into play with wit with tuberculosis we don't see that so much as relations have an initiative to allow as much a metropolitan areas that have a high industrial settings but we do see quite a bit of his affection and metropolitan areas and i think by and large the reason we see occurring in laws with governors because of kind of

a population composition we have in these areas as your car recall from reading what have you the most mud on unreasonable for lunch concentration of minorities and of ages who foreign terrorist groups and it has a homeless was the sentiment individuals who are alderman what have you so if you look at a low as much fun where you can think of that area's containing many about risk groups are groups that raise for having tuberculosis but not in relationship to a point of the industrial setting of the political community but in fact the population composition fuel the us in part of this questionnaire as well as polls are in the high risk for infection of this disease is there any particular reasons why the surge of minority groups other than living in a kasich area while they would become such a high risk group another nationality but i think if you really taliban's on ahead there when you said concentrated areas many of our minority populations in this day and time find themselves in situations where the economics

owning is not as as good as they like to have it just isn't good as we like to have it and as a result there's quite a bit of getting together in home housing settings to do better use of income incomes and i think you also have to consider that because of a lack of access to good medical care that we often found this critical segment of another site was at risk of tuberculosis and this particular arena also being impacted by this particular disease so the coming together people sharing conditions and make their life easier as a result of not having enough money and other reasons over the reasons we consider for this disease being so rapid and minorities another at risk populations are trickling in texas but in other parts of the country when it our state and federal health agencies realize that we're embarking on an epidemic politically for minorities a with the workhorses in this country well i think in the state of texas we really gave the idea that minorities are being impacted

by this is a serious thought about a year and half ago we had looked at the bad about mobsters who has studied the bad as carefully as we should have as a result of looking even close that the data to see where a high risk target populations relocated we were able to see that roughly seventy three percent of the tb cases we had in nineteen eighty nine did occur and minorities and hispanics those cases again occurred primarily and i was amazed as houston dallas san antonio fort worth in other areas and it costs and a whole new concentration on this population we were left before then of course at the centers for disease control the national focus we're looking at all possible risk groups and that their dad had generated a fairly decent concentration of disease cases within a minority populations but we in texas really began to study the issue for this is he's was occurring and state and what populations so were being most impacted roughly about two years ago and will come a surprise by the kind of information we saw coming out of that study but the rates which don actually

made high when it came to minorities the rates were very high when it came to the homeless population we looked at age of the aids cases the numbers we're from ohio and elderly which is custom of an eight a group of concerned the race continued the eye when the data was was was being tabulated the world put together when information coming from physicians has approved preventive healthcare mechanism or were these persons already contracted the disease in arabic they were being treated at the time i think within our case most of the conditions we see mostly cases we see of those conditions are cases that are on the treatment of course the support of the investigative surveillance control process when an individual is diagnosed as a case it becomes a poor the public health effort to do and go out and try to find out who the contacts have been to this particular individual so as a result of that the gathering of contacts that would surround this particular case of the cases another person's who had come in contact with this case and other cases and at that time in fact it

was infected well also brought into the whole process of schools process of surveillance so the cases we see an office of information we receive on cases in office and generate cases of undiagnosed eat in public health settings or by private physicians so does economists measure recede as kind of mission we we study and how to generate the activity around the us department of health and human services is senegal for tb elimination that is less than one case for me and by the year two thousand ten do you all believe that this goal is attainable and if so what nice to have because i'm a technological advances and love social watch over caution and ought to teresa's particular goal of one case it is a reachable goal but each area will have to assess whether a mad their particular state or city can reach this goal depends a

lot on some of the major areas that we have to deal with were talking about tuberculosis are at risk populations which was discussed already and technological changes too we need to work on improving our treatment tv takes a long time to treat and why roe goals now is short term treatment we have to focus on increasing the numbers of cases that we find out in the early stages of this disease increasing the people there on preventive treatment so we can keep these people from coming to the disease state we need to increase the amount dove recordkeeping that day goes on around a k sound get people started investigating these cases fast are often times people have impacted our time for people before we even know they've been a case a disease so the investigative process is delayed and we can't get to these people in time to stop other people from getting disease tuberculosis is a very interesting disease because you've got two main stages was tuberculosis

you have the impact it stays where the person has come in contact with the organism is coming to their bodies but it hasn't created problems for them at that time they don't feel safe they are not able to transmit the infection to anyone else and then you have what's called the active they says he's this is when they are sick this is when they're symptomatic then you're coughing when they have a fever when they got weight loss no appetite and duties are usually times when they're able to infect other people so we can get a handle on that first stage and keep them from getting into the second stage then we can begin to meet that goal so there are charges that a couple things that like with all said that i think it's critical pen and i can say it reinforces a reason for being here this time is that many people still believe and feel very strongly the tuberculosis is no longer in existence that kind of myth about tuberculosis has led to many complications when it comes to getting the word out to people who are in most need of education awareness and hopefully through this

program and other programs we can stimulate a great and presented in educating and receiving information but the general public on tuberculosis and that's disease has complications yet thing is that fills mention either tied to his is a difficult problem we have with getting patients to be compliant and taken a medication that process of cream of tuberculosis up into a few months ago was a fairly long process of steadily taking medication opposition may put a patient own treatment command to twelve months in daily treatment we have been able to get that period of treatment down to six months for those innovations who are infected with tuberculosis and in some cases when a patient's compliant a six month regimen of treatment also be applied to a case a person who has the disease because of these changes i like to think that the whole process of caring for tuberculosis patient has been improved and then improve that should lead to a better turnout on a patient's care what people need to be aware that this is these are still very much with us in the year nineteen ninety and will continue to be what this whole from a decreasing along the way

but will continue to be worthless one longtime us to become aware educated on how to prevent it ms brennan transmission and do things to enhance the community is awareness of the disease to cut his awareness of his of the disease and how we can survive this particular disease acted called the whole process to rebuild right now that we've gone through as a process of decline want to break in losses tuberculosis has been with this country this were a very very long time several thousand years and we have the tools that are necessary to bring it to a very close in the elimination of those tunes must be applied must be utilized by physicians and other health care workers and those innovations are coming contact with this particular disease need to adhere to what the treatments are and be compliant to the treatment and out to prevent themselves from becoming a case of disease and transmitting the disease to others so opposition has been new term was best to your area and some areas it would almost be required because the amount of tb cases in that particular area our standards we will make sure when to get tested and some others

doing mass screening would not be profitable or not all the same thing about beyond the numbers and the state of texas we've noticed that black males are clean days of twenty four and forty four twenty five and forty forcing the housewife from a high rate of tuberculosis we've question in our study why that is as it is some would say that that's occurring because that's also fairly much stage who weighs case aw kind others would say this is a group that's very much at risk why the drug is an anomaly whether a partisan seven the polls but that's a risk group for young man in particular young black males in the state should be concerned for whatever reason and skin testing to be very much about process without the way through our parents enlightened to the point where there are aware of certain high risk for danger signs that the children can contract

on the day to day basis where a beer in school playing around the home on vacation of hope of actually being aware of all of the some of the pitfalls that children can fall into the stars the hellfire mr weiss tb is concerned probably not because again whether things are really hurts to merkel was as a setback and people think of it as an old disease no one has any more you don't have to be concerned about it and then we have a lot of the young parent nana who had no concept of tb they've never been exposed to anyone that to their knowledge they had tuberculosis is not as it was in the fifties when a significant number of the population either had been exposed or have a grandparent or a parent who had had tuberculosis nowadays tb is not the usual disease that people think of when you got a kid that has a cough that won't go away or doesn't go away in a short amount of time or you've got a kid is running a fever for

no reason that you can determine you just don't think about tb you think about for you and you may see your doctor you may not see that or you know i sometimes think he knows that age where measles or whatever is cool around you maybe because his head has a measles or you start looking for sentence for measles and when nothing happens you think oh well maybe with just a call and he's ok ma'am because one of things about tb is a simple not continue over time you feel this for a while and then look i like go away for a little time but it doesn't mean the diseases are still working on the body because it really is but you just not having those same symptoms at that time so parents and i think stronger paris are not aware has really not their fault you know we're working on getting that message out to them more and more programs like this and other outreach is that were done within the community at this time and reading the the background information for his interview is to say who is very depressing are lawmakers and legislators aware of the severity of all of the

health problems confronting this country to present the national scale that health officials are taking a very close look at memorial dishes and rituals is a certain levels of they're looking at i'm not and one of the lenders known as overly impressed with what we've done honestly loving i think there's more that can be done our would've liked of saying perhaps a bit more discussion about an audio fishes in the governor's race and in some of the other campaign efforts that take place in our state cassani minorities rights hispanics asians are american indians suffering a tremendous blood from their health issues either because of access because of whatever reasons or maybe an advantage because our entire community political non political the citizens of the state of texas to be overly concerned about what happens to the health care process of those innovations of state because certain if the health conditions of texans do not improved across time the whole state suffers someone has to pay the bills of health care it's much easier to get to

be patient and give him taking care of preventable it that is the hospital as a patient for the pier turn to take care of his condition of this much better to prevent the spread of aids if you will that prevented mainstay to try to take care of an exploration of the course of that time with the disease they say similar be done if attention is paul two were directed toward the issues of better healthcare conditions were all texans and unless we do that from the political arena and as we do that from a public health and a community arena issues and problems are not changed it will simply get worse now mayor gone on a limb saying that the conical political saying it means that i think asian is the bottom front and discussed openly the bleep world tuberculosis grain will become a part of a physical a young person or malaysia person would automatically automatically receive if he or she goals and forty fifth annual physical a semi annual fees with this southern that you are trying to drive home to positions and

in health care a delivery systems as far the elimination plan that is one of the recommendations that every person have a documented record of having had tuberculosis contest as part of their medical record and they also recommend that children are getting there in his eighties at early ages to nine months or whatever that they get tuberculosis contest at that point in time when they enter the schools get tuberculosis test at that point in time and in some areas like texas where you have a lot of disease taxes california florida they strongly push this through their state systems that these things be done because those are the areas where we have a significant numbers of people not only minorities and all people who have tuberculosis now texas rates number theory in the country for disease for tuberculosis so it is a major focus here in texas someone listening to this program and they may wonder if they themselves

may have tuberculosis also want an immediate family what can he rashly do to put their mind at ease i'd like to recommend that they first of all if they feel that way contact a local health department and get more information from the tuberculosis program and most it's not all its state health department stores local farms in the state of texas to have tv programs have information on tuberculosis once they have a solid information out they may also have to seek another term and they need a precocious contest i was about a skin test and if i can add anyone who is at risk age of the infection off on political risk group should seek out at britain's contests tuberculosis in this is getting a little four which is saying is a one disease that aids patients or persons with age of infection do have this treatable but we can treat that person the duration of time record and cure them there's one condition we know we can prevent them from having

but the sheer contact a local health department and city lost and we know it's all sometimes can help apartment for six nine two thousand and asked that the rebels control division and in other parts of the state just call your local health department and tell them what we would like to have additional information about tuberculosis they'll put in touch with the right person and you're getting treating the disease how long is the treatment process and the reason why most people do not complete that they're pre ordered treatment of for the disease we're going to see it again you will find a variance or we're recommending that persons who have tuberculosis infection best non disease be treated for six month period if that person is confined to take their medication according to the schedule they'd all missed taking pills that they don't drop often and comeback person's gut disease physician can also determine that they should be treated for six month period as well some physicians are not fallen that whitaker regiment some physicians were recommended to personally treated for a nine month period and some cases we've seen even longer than that that's what disease but the the scribe and recommended

therapy is a six month regiment of treatment for an individual's gut disease and infection if they are compliant you must take a medication to receive that short term treatment wonderful person can all hear she has a disease and so i refused to comply with the oppositions recommendation how does that person put the people in this immediate the senate in jeopardy if that person refuses to comply with the medical care medications linda dawson she says all over the well if you got tuberculosis and you take your medication than anyone who is in your household like if you're the husband you can infect your whole family and it at carpool you can infect your car pull people if you have a job that has a so how boring situation at work in an office for instance

the airspace is very important as to the back the bacteria in the air can be just distributed this coughing sneezing which usually will do it you've got pulmonary tuberculosis so year resident printer and it at risk or excuse me that this is working around your plane around him but it has to be in a smaller air space you can't you don't get planned football was somebody or basketball and gymnasium that that anyone in your household you put them all at risk especially the children could this be something employers were all will again and inefficient that to create those populations who are at risk of contract is these well normally employers don't get involved unless they active case has been diagnosed in the work environment and that case them it's like the most communicable diseases everything is kept confidential we don't

give out people's names we may go to that works it and tell it in the people in charge to someone they work here or has worked here has been diagnosed with active tuberculosis and as a result of this where they need to screen diskin testing on the other people that work here but we don't give out any names as to who weren't men in that kind of thing because we do respect that person's competency alley so you don't have to be afraid ever all your friends are going to know that you got tuberculosis when someone from the public health department comes and talks to you about it is very important to take a medicine and one of the drawbacks with compliance emmys were people remaining on the train until they finish is a factory if you've got disease you're talking about two more drugs that you have to take two times a day every day and that can be a real problem for people and when you're talking about six months taking two more drones two times a day it gets very involved and people find

this difficult to maintain that and that's why people often do not complete their treatment that again when you're diagnosed with disease is william porter need to complete their medicine or if you're on preventive treatment meaning you have applied to skin test but you don't show signs of illness at this time we only on that one drug use very important to finish that medication because if you don't you run the risk of developing a disease and then putting your family or friends at risk my guest on this program as ben stiller's be cruz joyce cowan and charles well as all of the texas department of health if you need more information concerning to merkle says contact a local health agency or you're a physician if you have a question or comment about this program write us remember views and opinions expressed on his program and not necessarily those of the station or the universe your taxes at austin for production assistant research house band heidecker day out and in black america's technical producer hargrove

i'm john l dickinson junior have a safe new year's eve and join us again next year and next week cassette copies of this program are available and maybe purchased by writing in black america cassettes longhorn radio network communication building the ut austin austin texas seventy seven one tool that's in black america cassettes longhorn radio network communication building the ut austin austin texas seventy seven want to just from the centre for telecommunication services the university of texas at austin this is the longhorn radio network the pay