Tuberculosis And Poverty

Looking at the epidemic outbreak of Tuberculosis in New York during the early 90s and the long term Russian infection numbers, it is evident that poverty and lack of funds negatively impact public health. Public awareness of the problem is a huge factor in combating infectious diseases. In the New York City case, until the Tuberculosis epidemic came into view, public officials in politics didn't care about the threat and proceeded to cut funds. They felt that if it wasn't a current problem then it could be put on the "back burner" until it was an immediate problem.

Insufficient funding in New York caused the Tuberculosis outbreak. In 1992 at during the worst year of the outbreak, 3811 people were infected and 441 of them had multi-resistant strains (Reichman 139). Looking at the American social health care system before this point, during the 70s public officials thought they had been successful because of the dwindling number of TB cases. This celebration caused Congress to cut funds and convert them into state block grants, or basically an account used for general municipality operations. These federal funding cuts traveled all the way to the bottom of the health system. Employees for the Bureau of Tuberculosis decreased causing workers and hospitals to inadequately operate properly for TB testing and medicating. Similarly, understaffed hospitals and social welfare programs caused many homeless to seek refugee in homeless shelters. These places were overcrowded making a infectious TB patient very likely to spread the disease. "With the decline in funds for TB investigation and treatment, plus the social and economic problems, Felton (a TB expert in Harlem Hospital) saw that the TB rates in central Harlem had reached 240 causes per 100,000 people, which was higher than in many Third World countries." (Reichman 145) Lack of federal funding led to the TB outbreak in New York City.

Awareness of the TB problem prompted federal and state officials to increase funds to go back into effect to diminish the disease. Federal funding shot up from 5 million a year to 35 million a year. New York State put 100 million into the battle against TB in 1992. (Reichman 146) The Bureau of TB Control set

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