Gender matters : understanding of access barriers to community-based tuberculosis care in Bangladesh

<p>Background: Females lesser use of TB control services is a grave concern worldwide, entailing more gender research in quest of practical remedies.</p><p>Objective: To understand the gender differences in various clinical steps for TB care, explore gender-specific access barriers to TB control; and measure smear-positive PTB prevalence in different population groups of rural Bangladesh.</p><p>Methods: The studies were implemented in 12 subdistricts under the BRAC community-based DOTS programme, representing 10 subdistricts for Studies I-IV and 2 for Study V. Studies I, II and V embraced the cross-sectional design, and III and IV the cultural epidemiological descriptive qualitative design. Using the programme registry cases data of 3,600 systematically selected patients from outpatient clinic, laboratory and TB treatment registers (1,200 from each), the Study…