Abstract: Objective  To analyze tuberculosis (TB) epidemic of college students in Shapingba district, and to provide the evidence for improvement of TB control in college in Chongqing. Methods  Descriptive epidemiological analysis was conducted on the data of 820 TB patients of college students in Shapingba district from 2005 to 2012. Excel 2007 was used to set up the database, and SPSS 13.0 was used for data analysis. Chi-square test was used to analyze the impact of different ages, gender and detection methods to diagnosis delay and patient delay. P<0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results  The notification rate of TB among college students had decreased from 144.00/100 000 (121/84 028) in 2005 to 29.47/100 000 (76/257 889) in 2012, but more than 10% TB patients were college students in the past 8 years. In those 820 TB patients, 66.34% (544/820) had no suspected pulmonary tuberculosis symptoms, 77.32% (634/820) patients were detected by referral, 33.09% (271/819) had patient delay and 25.12% (206/820) had diagnostic delay. 71.43% (30/42) patients detected by tracing had diagnosis delay. Conclusion  The TB epidemic in college has been controlled in recent years in Shapingba district, but the TB epidemic prevention and control in college is still grim. Comprehensive prevention and control measures, such as improving TB control system in college, strengthening TB health promotion and optimizing the surveillance of TB epidemic should be taken.

Key words: Tuberculosis, pulmonary/epidemiology, Tuberculosis, pleural/epidemiology, Students, Epidemiologic studies, Chongqing City