Setting: Brazil ranks eighteenth worldwide in annual numbers of new tuberculosis (TB) cases. The municipality of Manaus, Amazonas State, has the highest incidence of TB in Brazil.
Objective: To evaluate the quality of TB epidemiological surveillance, and to describe the spatial distribution pattern of TB incidence in Manaus and its social determinants.
Design: An ecological study was performed based on secondary data from TB epidemiological surveillance reports.
Results: An index was developed to classify neighborhoods in terms of the quality of surveillance and suspected underreporting. Based on data from neighborhoods with better surveillance performance, we observed that the average number of residents per room, the unemployment rate and the proportion of households connected to a sewage system were significant predictors of TB incidence. Seven neighborhoods in the south and west of the city had clusters of high TB transmission.
Conclusion: Our results suggest that the association between TB and social vulnerability is obscured by the poor quality of TB surveillance data. We identified priority areas that require immediate TB control interventions and those where local surveillance efforts should be improved, and generated information useful for formulating more effective actions.