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Recent household transmission of tuberculosis in England, 2010–2012: retrospective national cohort study combining epidemiological and molecular strain typing data

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Medicine, June 2017
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  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (90th percentile)
  • Good Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (65th percentile)

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1 news outlet
blogs
1 blog
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13 X users

Citations

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29 Dimensions

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94 Mendeley
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Title
Recent household transmission of tuberculosis in England, 2010–2012: retrospective national cohort study combining epidemiological and molecular strain typing data
Published in
BMC Medicine, June 2017
DOI 10.1186/s12916-017-0864-y
Pubmed ID
Authors

Maeve K. Lalor, Laura F. Anderson, Esther L. Hamblion, Andy Burkitt, Jennifer A. Davidson, Helen Maguire, Ibrahim Abubakar, H. Lucy Thomas

Abstract

We estimate the proportion of tuberculosis (TB) in England due to recent household transmission, identify factors associated with being a household transmitter, and investigate the impact that identification of a case has on time to treatment of subsequent cases. TB cases notified between 2010 and 2012 in England in the same household as another case were identified; 24 locus MIRU-VNTR strain typing (ST) was used to identify household cases with likely recent transmission. Treatment delay in index and subsequent cases was compared. Risk factors for being a household transmitter were identified in univariable and multivariable analyses. Overall, 7.7% (1849/24,060) of TB cases lived in a household with another case. We estimate that 3.9% were due to recent household transmission. ST data was unavailable for 67% (1242) of household pairs. For those with ST data, 64% (386) had confirmed, 11% probable (66) and 25% (155) refuted household transmission. The median treatment delay was 65 days for index cases and 37 days for subsequent asymptomatic cases. Risk factors for being a household transmitter included being under 25 years old, UK-born with Black African, Indian or Pakistani ethnicity, or born in Somalia or Romania. This study has a number of implications for household TB contact tracing in low incidence countries, including the potential to reduce the diagnostic delay for subsequent household cases and the benefit of using ST to identify when to conduct source contact tracing outside the household. As 25% of TB cases in households had discordant strains, households with multiple TB cases do not necessarily represent household transmission. The additional fact that 25% of index cases within households only had extra-pulmonary TB demonstrates that, if household contact tracing is limited to pulmonary TB cases (as recently recommended in UK guidelines), additional cases of active TB in households will be missed. Our finding that no lineage of TB was associated with recent household transmission and with no increased transmissibility in the Beijing lineage compared to others, suggests that the lineage need not impact contact tracing efforts. Improvements in contact tracing have the potential to reduce transmission of TB in low incidence countries.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 13 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 94 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 94 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 18 19%
Student > Bachelor 11 12%
Researcher 8 9%
Other 8 9%
Student > Ph. D. Student 7 7%
Other 12 13%
Unknown 30 32%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 29 31%
Nursing and Health Professions 9 10%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 7 7%
Mathematics 3 3%
Environmental Science 2 2%
Other 10 11%
Unknown 34 36%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 22. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 08 November 2017.
All research outputs
#1,485,260
of 22,981,247 outputs
Outputs from BMC Medicine
#1,036
of 3,454 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#31,641
of 317,529 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Medicine
#18
of 52 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 22,981,247 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 93rd percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 3,454 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 43.6. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 69% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 317,529 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 90% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 52 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 65% of its contemporaries.