Public Health and Individual Rights: Tuberculosis Control and Detention Procedures in New York City

Abstract

New York City, like other major urban centers in the United States, is currently experiencing a growing tuberculosis epidemic. The reasons for the resurgence of this epidemic are multifaceted and interconnected, and include such factors as the decline in the public health care infrastructure during the past two decades, an increase in homelessness and poverty, and the appearance of HIV/AIDS. Between 1985 and 1992, there was a twenty percent Tuberculosis Control and Dentention Procedures in New York City increase in the total number of tuberculosis cases reported in the United States, compared with a seventy-four percent decline during the previous thirty-two years.