Objective We investigated and analyzed past and ongoing welfare programs related to health equity, and the relevant policies, documents, and interventions measures for improving China’s migrant worker population’s accessibility and utilization of tuberculosis (TB) control services in TB control programs. Then we evaluated their impactin order to provide evidence and suggestions for the further TB prevention and treatment.
Methods We retrieved published documents about TB prevention and treatment of the migrant worker population dating from 1998 to 2008 from MEDLINE, PubMed, CNKI, CBMdisc CDDB, and VIP electronically. Simultaneously, a series of interviews was conducted with patients who used the programs.
Results Totally, 58 documents were retrieved. Of these documents 13 passed eligibility criteria: eight have been published, five have not been published, and only one of them is RCT with B degree for quality of evidence. Secondary document research has suggested that the intervention measures that have been adopted concerning TB in China, including health promotion, providing incentive, patient tracking and supervision management. Although tuberculosis cure rates have improved, the scene interviews show that the majority of TB and suspected cases of patients don’t have enough knowledge on TB prevention and free treatment policies. It is often difficult to track the migrant population. TB detection and treatment still need to be enhanced.
Conclusions There it is lack of high-quality documents about good intervention design, so it is difficult to make a objective and fair evaluation to the effects of intervention on the migrant population. In the future, we should carry out large-scale, multicenter, high-quality RCTs specifically for TB controlin the migrant population in order to provide evidencefor making a scientific and feasible intervention project.
Citation: CHEN Tao,WANG Yang,TANG Xiaojun,ZENG Huan,LIU Xiaoxue,LIU Qin,LONG Qian,Kadale Consultants,Rachael Thomson. Evidence-based Review of the Intervention Strategies on the TB Prevention and Treatment among Migrants in China. Chinese Journal of Evidence-Based Medicine, 2009, 09(4): 371-375. doi: 10.7507/1672-2531.20090070 Copy