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COMMUNITY‐WIDE CHEST X‐RAY SURVEYS IN AUSTRALIA
Author(s) -
Boag T. C.
Publication year - 1971
Publication title -
medical journal of australia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.904
H-Index - 131
eISSN - 1326-5377
pISSN - 0025-729X
DOI - 10.5694/j.1326-5377.1971.tb50432.x
Subject(s) - tuberculosis , attendance , population , active tuberculosis , obligation , family medicine , medicine , demography , political science , environmental health , law , sociology , mycobacterium tuberculosis , pathology
Community‐wide chest X‐ray surveys conducted as the major case‐finding measure in Australia's vigorous antitubercuiosis campaign are reviewed. It is contended that a large part of the campaign's success as demonstrated has been due to the compulsory surveys. Where surveys have been conducted on a voluntary B.S.s attendances have been poor, whereas compulsion has resulted in almost 100% attendance of the eligible population. The discovery rate of active tuberculosis in the small percentage of the population who have to be reminded of their obligation is often nine ‐to ten times that in the initially cooperative. Twenty persons with non‐tuberculous abnormalities and 10 with inactive tuberculosis have been discovered for every case of active tuberculosis found. There has been wholehearted community and official support of the surveys, which have carried out 29,000,000 examinations in 20 years. Economic considerations are briefly discussed.