Wednesday, February 5, 2025
2/5/2025
Project Abstract Summary The Louisiana Tuberculosis Control Program (LTBCP) Central Office provides direction and support to 9 regional TB control programs across the state. These regional TB programs provide services in all 64 parishes in Louisiana, serving a population of 4.59 million people. With this grant funding, core central office staff will be supported to provide services such as programmatic direction, nursing consultation, physician consultation, cluster investigation assistance and new staff training. In addition to regional support, LTBCP is responsible for programmatic guidance, program evaluation, and surveillance activities. The mission of the LTBCP is to reduce and ultimately eliminate TB disease in Louisiana. The program follows 3 priority strategies to achieve these goals. These strategies include; (1) identifying and completely treating persons with active TB disease; (2) identifying and screening persons who are contacts to TB cases to determine if they are infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria or have active TB disease and treating those that are infected; (3) identifying and focusing resources on high-risk population groups to treat TB disease, infection, and prevent further spread of the disease within those population groups. With the direct financial assistance of Cooperative Agreement funds, the LTBCP will be fully staffed and plans to expand outreach activities to high-risk population groups. Steps have already begun, on a regional level, to identify and partner with community organizations and agencies which provide services to foreign-born individuals and those clients newly diagnosed with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). Recent and future outreach activities will address disparities in population groups by racial and geographical areas with increased TB incidence. The goal for this initiative is to reduce tb-related morbidity and mortality in these high-risk groups through education, screening, and preventative treatment. In addition to state-level direction and support, the funds from this grant will assist regional TB Control operations. Louisiana has 9 Public Health Regions in the state. In each of the regions, there are both clinic and field operations. Cooperative Agreement funds are used to supplement regional chest clinics and to aid in the contact investigations, improving compliance rates and patient outcomes.
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