The social epidemiology of tuberculosis in South Africa:
A multilevel analysis
Increased risk of tuberculosis is widely recognized to be associated with increased poverty, yet there have been few
analyses of the social determinants of tuberculosis, particularly in high-burden settings. We conducted a multilevel analysis
of self-reported tuberculosis disease in a nationally representative sample of South Africans based on the 1998
Demographic and Health Survey (DHS). Individual and household-level demographic, behavioral and socioeconomic risk
factors were taken from the DHS; data on community-level socioeconomic status (including measures of absolute wealth
and income inequality) were derived from the 1996 national census. Of the 13,043 DHS respondents, 0.5% reported having
been diagnosed with tuberculosis disease in the past 12 months and 2.8% reported having been diagnosed with tuberculosis
disease in their lifetime. In a multivariate model adjusting for demographic and behavioral risk factors, tuberculosis
diagnosis was associated with cigarette smoking, alcohol consumption and low body mass index, as well as a lower level of
personal education, unemployment and lower household wealth. In a model including individual- and household-level risk
factors, high levels of community income inequality were independently associated with increased prevalence of
tuberculosis (adjusted odds ratio for lifetime tuberculosis comparing the most unequal quintile to the middle quintile of
inequality: 2.37, 95% confidence interval: 1.59–3.53). These results provide novel insights into the socioeconomic
determinants of tuberculosis in developing country settings, although the mechanisms through which income inequality
may affect tuberculosis disease require further investigation.