TB Epidemiological Studies Consortium (TBESC)

The Tuberculosis Epidemiologic Studies Consortium (TBESC) is a CDC-funded initiative to carry out observational epidemiologic research and related studies to improve identification, diagnosis, prevention, and control of TB disease and latent TB infection. TBESC is one of CDC's flagship TB research consortia tasked with identifying approaches to accelerate TB elimination in the United States. The current research cycle, known as TBESC-III, began in September 2021 and ends in March 2026. TBESC-III objectives include: (1) Identify primary care settings that serve non-U.S.-born persons at elevated risk for TB infection, (2) Collect retrospective and prospective electronic medical record data, (3) Design and implement primary-care-based interventions to improve performance measures across the latent TB infection care cascade, (4) Monitor and evaluate intervention performance over time to identify efficient and effective strategies to prevent TB disease, (5) Estimate the potential health and economic impacts of TBESC-III clinical care-based interventions.