Although the rate of new tuberculosis cases among U.S. children and adolescents has decreased by nearly half in recent years, incidence of the disease remains disproportionately high among certain ethnic, racial and geographic communities, researchers reported in The Lancet Public Health.

Using data from the National TB Surveillance System (NTSS) and U.S. Census Bureau, Tori Cowger, MPH, from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and colleagues evaluated TB incidence rates among children and adolescents from 2007 to 2017. They then analyzed trends by race, ethnicity and parental country of birth as well as in U.S. territories, including American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and freely associated states, including the Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands and Palau.