Contact Investigation/Contact Tracing

This guideline outlines the steps involved in conducting a TB interview for a contact investigation.

This videotape presents a comedic skit that illustrates the complexities involving care of a difficult inmate who has active TB disease and the collaboration needed to identify contacts and treat the inmate to cure. The videotape addresses transmission and infectiousness, medication regimen, length of treatment, and the need for good specimen collection and types of specimens.

This fact sheet gives general information about what a TB contact investigation is and why it is important.

This guide is divided into three major parts. The first part is designed to provide the Contact Investigator with the essential HIV/AIDS information he or she will need when engaging in a family-friendly discussion to encourage TB contacts to agree to HIV counseling and testing. The second is designed to give TB program managers guidelines for implementing a program tailored to their jurisdiction. The third part details a training course that will impart the skills, attitudes, and knowledge one will need to include HIV in tuberculosis contact investigations.

This manual describes the TB field investigation process including pre-investigation preparation, communication with individuals in the field, confidentiality, field safety, and working with community providers. A checklist to be used during field work is also included.

This manual provides supervisors with methods for training and tools to assess a health care worker’s field investigation skills including ability to set priorities, locate patients, and provide motivation and education to ensure medical evaluation, utilize appropriate investigation techniques, and disposition investigations in a timely manner. Also presented are recommendations for documenting and retaining work assignments and evaluation of field activities.

This report summarizes the results of an investigation of the patients and their contacts in Chickasaw County, Mississippi during the period from June 1999 to March 2002, and demonstrates the need for strategies to increase the proportion of infected contacts that successfully complete treatment for latent TB infection (LTBI).

This resource is designed for use in the evaluation of tuberculosis (TB) contact investigations in congregate settings. It provides explanatory text and tools for assessing health care worker performance and skills as well as programmatic outcomes of contact investigations in congregate settings.

This fact sheet gives general information about what a TB contact investigation is and why it is important.

This fact sheet gives general information about what a TB contact investigation is and why it is important.