Journal of Tuberculosis Research, 2018, 6, 302-319 http://www.scirp.org/journal/jtr ISSN Online: 2329-8448 ISSN Print: 2329-843X DOI: 10.4236/jtr.2018.64027 Dec. 28, 2018 302 Journal of Tuberculosis Research Space-Time Cluster Analysis of Tuberculosis Incidence in Beijing, China Gehendra Mahara 1,2,3 , Mina Karki 4 , Kun Yang 1,3,5 , Sipeng Chen 1,3,6 , Wei Wang 1,7* , Xiuhua Guo 1,3* 1 Department of Epidemiology and Health Statistics, School of Public Health, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China 2 Department of Medical Statistics and Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China 3 Beijing Municipal Key Laboratory of Clinical Epidemiology, Beijing, China 4 Mental Hospital, Kathmandu, Nepal 5 Department of Evidence-Based Medicine, Xuanwu Hospital, Beijing, China 6 Fuwai Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Science, Beijing, China 7 School of Medical Sciences, Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia Abstract Tuberculosis is one of the top killer diseases in the globe. The aim of this study was to explore the geographic distribution patterns and clustering cha- racteristics of the disease incidence in terms of both space and time with high relative risk locations for tuberculosis incidence in Beijing area. A retrospec- tive space-time clustering analysis was conducted at the districts level in Bei- jing area based on reported cases of sputum smear-positive pulmonary tu- berculosis (TB) from 2005 to 2014. Global and local Moran’s I, autocorrela- tion analysis along with Ord (Gi*) statistics was applied to detect spatial pat- terns and the hotspot of TB incidence. Furthermore, the Kuldorff’s scan sta- tistics were used to analyze space-time clusters. A total of 40,878 TB cases were reported in Beijing from 2005 to 2014. The annual average incidence rate was 22.11 per 100,000 populations (ranged from 16.55 to 25.71). The seasonal incidence occurred from March to July until late autumn. A higher relative risk area for TB incidence was mainly detected in urban and some rural districts of Beijing. The significant most likely space-time clusters and secondary clusters of TB incidence were scattered diversely in Beijing districts in each study year. The risk population was mainly scattered in urban and dense populated districts, including in few rural districts. Keywords Tuberculosis, Spatial Statistics, Space-Time Analysis, Beijing, China How to cite this paper: Mahara, G., Karki, M., Yang, K., Chen, S.P., Wang, W. and Guo, X.H. (2018) Space-Time Cluster Analysis of Tuberculosis Incidence in Bei- jing, China. Journal of Tuberculosis Re- search, 6, 302-319. https://doi.org/10.4236/jtr.2018.64027 Received: December 6, 2018 Accepted: December 25, 2018 Published: December 28, 2018 Copyright © 2018 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY 4.0). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Open Access