Ethnic origin is more important than social deprivation

Abstract

EDITOR,--The papers by Punam Mangtani and colleagues1 and N Bhatti and colleagues2 highlight the importance of poverty and overcrowding in the recent increase in rates of tuberculosis in Britain. The study by Mangtani and colleagues shows that overcrowding and the proportion of migrants were related to the average rate of notification of tuberculosis in 1981 but that only changes in unemployment were related to the rate of change in tuberculosis between 1981 and 1991. This period might, however, be better regarded as two distinct periods, with a decline in the rate of tuberculosis between 1981 and 1986 followed …