A follow-up study of tuberculosis incidence and general mortality in various occupational-social groups of the Danish population.

The aim of this study (which was prospective, as opposed to retrospective) was to determine, for the tuberculosis case-finding programme in Denmark, whether grouping the population in eight broad occupational-social classes would reveal groups with a high tuberculosis incidence. The procedure was to examine the incidence of respiratory tuberculosis in the various groups during a 6-year follow-up period. The study comprises the total male population outside the metropolitan area and aged 15-34 years in 1950-52.The incidence of respiratory tuberculosis was found to be lower among persons in agriculture than in the other groups. In other occupations and among persons not gainfully occupied or with occupation not stated, the rates were rather similar. Further break-down among those gainfully employed revealed, at most, only minor differences between wage-earners and self-employed persons. The current occupational-social classification in use in Denmark was thus of little help in pin-pointing high-risk groups.The general mortality rates were the same in agriculture and in other occupations, and in these groups the rates were much lower than among those not gainfully employed or with occupation not stated. Within the rural population a higher mortality was observed among wage-earners than among the self-employed.