Setting: Khon Kaen Province, North-East Thailand.
Objective: To develop a rapid and cheap method of surveying a population cluster (a village) to establish the prevalence of sputum-positive tuberculosis.
Design: Based on previous experience a standardized 'rapid village survey' method was designed and tested. In this method a survey team of health workers is constituted and trained. Before and at the beginning of a visit to a village the population receives information about tuberculosis, and only individuals with chest symptoms are invited to report voluntarily to the survey team for examination. Active tracing of a previously compiled 'list of suspects and contacts' complements the identification of cases. The number of community members to be examined is thus much lower. A cluster sample of the provincial population was made (20,730 people in 40 villages). The population in each village was surveyed first by the Rapid Village Survey method, then, 1 week later, by the conventional method of examining every individual registered in each village.
Results: In the rapid village survey 14 cases of sputum-positive tuberculosis were detected and in the conventional survey 15 cases.
Conclusion: The rapid method produces results comparable to the survey of the total sample population for less than half of the cost.