Tuberculosis-related hospital use among recent immigrants to Canada

This study provides new evidence on TB-related hospitalizations among new immigrants to Canada. It uses a unique linked data file (2000-to-2013 Longitudinal Immigration Database (IMDB) linked to the Canadian Institute for Health Information's Discharge Abstract Database (DAD) from 2001/2002 to 2013/2014) that brings together information from immigrant landing records and hospital data for a maximum of 13 years to identify a TB-related hospital event after landing. Specifically, this paper provides a profile of the timing of TB-related acute care hospitalization, starting from the time of landing among immigrants who officially landed in Canada from 2000 to 2013, as well as an estimation of the burden of TB hospital care in Canada incurred by these recent immigrants relative to the total Canadian population.