Clinic-based Versus Hotspot-focused Active TB Case Finding

This five-year study will evaluate two strategies for conducting tuberculosis (TB) active case finding (ACF) and linkage to TB treatment or TB preventive therapy (TPT) in peri-urban Uganda. The two strategies differ in the location where ACF activities are performed: A "facility-based" ACF/TPT strategy will perform ACF, plus linkage to TPT, in the immediate vicinity of a large public health facility and will primarily recruit individuals who are attending the health facility, irrespective of TB suspicion or symptoms. Alternatively, a "hotspot-based" strategy will use routine notification data and local expertise to identify local TB hotspots - defined as the geographic areas though to have the highest burden of undiagnosed TB per estimated population. The same infrastructure (personnel, equipment, supplies, etc.) for ACF/TPT will then be placed in those zones for a period of four months at a time, and the general population will be recruited for screening and linkage to TPT.

The two interventions will be compared in a Type 1 hybrid effectiveness-implementation trial with a cluster-randomized, multiple-period crossover design. The study will evaluate whether hotspot-focused ACF/TPT results in a greater number of TB patients diagnosed and linked to care, and a greater number of individuals started on preventive therapy, than facility-based ACF/TPT. Secondarily, it will also compare the two interventions in terms of number of people initiated on TPT, and it will compare TB cases detected in regions performing ACF/TPT (either approach) against cases detected in regions that continue to perform the standard of care.