The association of housing density, isolation and tuberculosis in Canadian First Nations communities.

Acute rheumatic fever in First Nations communities in northwestern Ontario: Social determinants of health "bite the heart".

OBJECTIVE To document a case series of 8 young First Nations patients diagnosed with acute rheumatic fever (ARF), a preventable disease that resulted in the death of 2 patients, in northwestern Ontario in the context of late diagnosis, overcrowded housing, and inadequate public health response. DESIGN Retrospective case series over an 18-month period. SETTING Remote First Nations communitie...

Safe drinking water standards for First Nations communities.

Hepatitis A among residents of First Nations Reserves in British Columbia, 1991-1996.

BACKGROUND Hepatitis A spreads by the fecal-oral route. We hypothesize that it is more common in Aboriginal communities because of poverty, crowded housing and inadequate or substandard water and sewage systems. METHODS We tabulated on-reserve cases reported to First Nations and Inuit Health Branch, Health Canada. We obtained information on community water supply, sewage disposal and mean pop...

Pediatric tuberculosis in Alberta First Nations (1991-2000): outbreaks and the protective effect of bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine.

BACKGROUND The tuberculosis control strategy of vaccinating First Nations newborns with BCG (bacille Calmette-Guerin) is currently undergoing re-evaluation in Canada. Review of recent pediatric tuberculosis morbidity could inform this re-evaluation. METHODS Potential source cases and pediatric cases of tuberculosis from Alberta First Nations were identified over the 10 years 1991-2000. The di...

Killer Immunoglobulin-Like Receptor (KIR) Centromeric-AA Haplotype Is Associated with Ethnicity and Tuberculosis Disease in a Canadian First Nations Cohort

Killer immunoglobulin-like receptors (KIR) on natural killer (NK) cells interact with other immune cells to monitor the immune system and combat infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis (TB). The balance of activating and inhibiting KIR interactions helps determine the NK cell response. In order to examine the enrichment or depletion of KIRs as well as to explore the association between TB sta...