Foreign-born People Research Articles

Unemployment of people of foreign origin in France: The role of discrimination

This article has two primary objectives: (1) to understand the relationship between the origins of the children of immigrants and the likelihood of unemployment; and (2) to examine the possible role of discrimination in the likelihood of unemployment. The French Permanent Demographic Sample (EDP, a longitudinal database maintained by INSEE, which is the French equivalent of the English Longitudinal Survey) permits the study young foreign-born people who grew up in France and young people of foreign-origin who were born in France. The EDP is a census-based panel survey that, on average, comprises a 1 per cent sample of all immigrant groups. It contains information on a person’s nationality relative to his/her labour market position. According to most academics, it also contains valuable socio-demographic and socio-economic information on parents and their sons and daughters. The data registry was created in 1967 and includes data from the 1968, 1975, 1982, 1990, and 1999 censuses. The interest in individual trajectories requires us to consider the relations between personal labour market situations and the acquisition of French nationality. This relation must be analyzed in light of the population which consists of those children who, since childhood, have been in a position to acquire French citizenship. Although gaining citizenship is usually regarded as an important sign of civic and political assimilation among immigrants, it can also be seen as a factor in their economic assimilation. French nationality makes it easier for young immigrants to get jobs. It is better to be a young Algerian or Moroccan with French nationality than to be a young Algerian or Moroccan who does not have French nationality.

Re-examining the migration–trade link using province data: An application of the generalized propensity score

The migration–trade link has been studied extensively since the mid nineties, finding a positive impact through different channels. Based on the generalized propensity score (GPS) methodology, we estimate a dose–response function, depicting a non-linear impact of immigration on exports using province data for Spain and Italy. For both countries the response of province exports to more immigrants from a given nationality is always positive, although varies with the level of immigrants. First we find neither minimum threshold nor exhaustion point in the effectiveness of the immigration networks on province exports. Second we find that the value of the potential bilateral exports reaches a maximum in relatively small ethnic networks: between 70 and 100 foreign-born people of the same nationality. From a socio-economic policy perspective our results support local policies encouraging ethnic diversity in order to stimulate external trade.

Impact of immigration on burden of tuberculosis in Umbria: a low-incidence Italian region with high immigrants rates.

In Italy, Tubercolosis (TB) has increasingly become a disease for specific population subgroups such as immigrants. The objective of this paper is to describe the trend in TB incidence from 1999 to 2008 in Umbria: a low-incidence Italian region with high immigrants rates. Data were obtained from the Regional Information System for Infectious Diseases. Using a linear regressions model we estimated trends for number of cases and incidence rates; with a logistic regression model we estimated the effect of a set of covariates on the probability of being affected by TB. 590 TB cases were reported of whom 254 (43%) were foreign. In 2008 39.7 new cases per 100.000 were registered among foreign-born subjects. TB incidence among Italians was 3.8/100.000 Italians. But a linear regression analysis showed a statistically significant decreasing trend in the notification rate among foreign-born people (coef: -7.32, r2:0.57, p < 0.05). The probability to be affected by extra-pulmonary is significantly larger in foreign patients (OR = 0.72, CI = 0.48-1.07). Foreign unskilled workers report a higher probability to be affected by TB (OR = 19.05, CI = 6.01-60.4). Increasing immigration rates may affect TB epidemiology. The analysis of incidence trends is an important toolfor monitoring tuberculosis disease control and to identify specific sub-group at risk.

Foreign minds, fenceless imagination: The 2013 Vilcek Foundation Prizes

Every year, the White House announces the winners of the National Medal of Science and the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. Awarded during a special ceremony by the president, these medals represent the highest honors bestowed by the United States government on scientists and engineers. In his address during the White House awards ceremony in the fall of 2011, President Obama noted that nine of the 12 honorees were born outside of the U.S. (1). The winners came to the U.S., he said, because “America is the best place in the world to do the work they do.” At a time when immigration counts as an issue of pressing political currency, the importance of foreign-born scientists to the U.S. biomedical research enterprise bears repeating: the proportion of foreign-born researchers among recipients of high honors bestowed on American scientists typically exceeds the percentage of foreign-born people living in the U.S., which—including undocumented aliens—hovers around 13% of the general population (2). In fact, at least one in three scientists honored with the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for work done in the U.S. during the past century was born outside of the country (3). The United States is a nation of immigrants, and most Americans are proud of their ancestral roots. Nevertheless, a significant portion of the populace subscribes to the view that new immigrants are a burden on the country’s economy. To raise public awareness of the invaluable contribution of immigrants to science in America, the Vilcek Foundation initiated an annual program of prizes to recognize accomplished foreign-born biomedical scientists who are widely regarded as leaders in their fields (Table 1). Currently, each of these prizes includes a cash award of $100,000 (3–5). To recognize a younger generation of distinguished immigrant scientists, the Vilcek Foundation established annual Prizes for Creative Promise in 2009; to be eligible, applicants must be 38 years of age or younger (4–5). In 2013, three winners of the Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science were selected, and each winner was awarded a cash prize of $35,000 (Table 2). Similarly, the Vilcek Foundation (5) confers annual prizes on prominent, foreign-born artists for outstanding achievement in various artistic endeavors. This year, the Vilcek Prize in Biomedical Science is shared by immunologists Richard Flavell and Ruslan Medzhitov, both Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigators in the Department of Immunobiology at Yale University.

Labor-market status, migrant status and first childbearing in Sweden

Background Labor market uncertainties and employment insecurity have emerged as increasingly important factors in research on family formation and fertility.Objective In the present study, we provide evidence from Sweden on how non-employment, unemployment, and temporary employment relate to young people's first birth risks.Methods We use a combination of Labor Force Survey data on employment characteristics and register data on demographic outcomes to investigate how the labor market status and stability of employment are associated with the first birth behavior of women and men, and of Swedish-and foreign-born people in Sweden.Results Consistent with previous research, we find that people who are not in the labor force are less likely than those who are employed to enter parenthood. In most cases, we also find that young people who are in temporary employment are less likely than those who are permanently employed to start a family.Conclusions Our study demonstrates that foreign-born people living in Sweden tend to adapt to the behavior of native-born Swedes, and that patterns for women and men are largely similar. We relate these findings to the equalizing impact of the country's universal welfare regime.

Undiagnosed HIV prevalence in France

Supervie and Costagliola [1] comments suggest first that our conclusion is not in accordance with our analysis. Our estimated 0.09% undiagnosed HIV prevalence is below the 0.10% threshold suggested by health authorities for implementing universal screening. We agree that this difference is not statistically significant. However, that value, obtained in the most affected area in France, combined with the fact that undiagnosed infections were only found in high-risk groups,’ amply justifies our conclusion that a ‘universal testing strategy should be questioned in France’. A second remark states that, in a previous study [2], we claimed that the Emergency Department (ED) tested population was representative of the French population. That is a misinterpretation. We clearly mentioned that those two populations differed by over-representations of foreign-born people (particularly sub-Saharan Africans), women with more than 1 sexual partner during the last 12 months and more frequent HIV screening among the ED-tested population (see Table 1, p. 14) [2]. Thus, ED-undiagnosed HIV prevalence could not be considered the same as that of the general population. That situation then led us to estimate the general population prevalence with a calibration method [3]. Such a method is not applied to reduce bias in the sampling frame, as Supervie and Costagliola [1] claim, but to decrease the variance of estimators through the use of auxiliary information, which could not initially be taken into account in the design of the survey [4]. Our analysis used sociodemographic data, for example, sex and age from a population census, to perform a poststratification (also called standardization) and included data on sexual orientation and country of birth, which could not be crossed with all the other variables, and thus required a raking ratio method [5].Table 1: Characteristics of patients HIV tested in Emergency Departments and completing questionnaires compared with a reference general population.We thank Supervie and Costagliola [1] for giving us the opportunity to provide more details on the calibration method used, which, along with the management of missing data through multiple imputations allowed us to obtain an accurate and reliable estimate of the undiagnosed-HIV prevalence in the general population. Acknowledgements Conflicts of interest Dr A-C.C. reports receiving grants from Janssen–Cilag, Novartis, AstraZeneca, Aventis and Haeraus for consultancies, workshops and travel to meetings and accommodations. Dr P. de T. reports receiving grants from Abbott, BMS, Gilead, MSD, Tibotec Janssen and ViiV Healthcare for workshops and travel to meetings and accommodations. Dr F.S. reports receiving grants for the evaluation of Orasure RTD. The other authors have no disclosures to declare.

The effect of a culturally diverse labour supply on regional income in the EU

Because of an inflow of people into the EU but also because of the freedom of workplace choice within the EU, European regions are becoming more diverse in cultural terms. Despite the redistribution of labour and changes in regional labour supply, the ultimate question raised is whether there are additional gains or losses as a result of immigration flows. This paper therefore focuses on the impact of migrants on regional Gross Domestic Product per capita for European regions. Does the proportion of foreigners in the labour force increase or lower regional income? Does the composition of non-natives with respect to their countries of origin matter? We provide evidence that immigration and a higher degree of cultural diversity raise regional income, while controlling for endogeneity. We show that cultural diversity promotes income gains for destination countries. Whereas the presence of dominant groups reduces the costs of interaction and integration, diversity among foreign-born people increases the supply of different skills, knowledge and tasks. Thus, in general immigration has a positive net effect on regional performance and the costs of immigration in destination regions are balanced out. The regions of origin within the EU face a rise or a decline in income, depending on the labour market status of movers.

Heterogeneous patterns of health status among immigrants in Spain

Objectives(1) To analyse differences in the self-perceived health and mental health status between the Spanish population and immigrants from the seven leading countries in terms of number of immigrants; (2) to examine whether differences are accounted for by socio-economic charateristics, and (3) to determine whether the patterns of associations differ by gender. MethodsData come from the 2006 Spanish National Health Survey. The sample was composed of all 20–64 year old Spaniards and immigrants from the seven countries with most immigrants in Spain (Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Romania and Morocco) [n=20,731]. ResultsIn both sexes, people from Bolivia had poorer health outcomes, above all Bolivian males. Conversely, people from Argentina and Colombia had the best health outcomes. For the rest of the countries varied results depending on gender, country and health indicator were found. ConclusionsDifferences in health status between people born in Spain and foreign-born people depend on relationships between country of birth, characteristics of the migration process, gender, ethnicity and the health outcome analyzed.

Regional characteristics of foreign-born people living in the United Kingdom

This article examines the characteristics of foreign-born people living in the UK: how they differ between regions and countries, and from people born in the UK. Demographic, social and economic characteristics are examined using data from the Annual Population Survey (APS), 2009. The article looks first at the characteristics of the foreign-born population at a national UK level and the regional differences between foreign-born populations. It then compares the foreign-born and UK-born populations at regional level for each region and country of the UK.

NWSA Confronts Anti-Immigration Law in Georgia

news and views NWS A Confronts Anti-Immigration Law in Georgia Karla Mantilla Working for social justice is rarely a straightforward, unproblematic pro cess. It often entails finding a way to reconcile passionately held political convictions with a multitude of outside intervening practicalities. The National Women's Studies Association (NWSA) has had to struggle with just such a challenge recently when the state in which the organization planned to hold its annual conference, Georgia, passed a law targeting immigrants. With their annual conference scheduled for November 10-13 in Atlanta, NWSA had to decide whether to participate in a boycott of the state—the kind of tough choice that several academic organizations have recently had to face when locations for their annual meetings have also become sites of controversy. In 2010, for example, the American Historical Association and the American Political Science Association were faced with similar decisions about whether to participate in a boycott of the state of California, where they had previously scheduled their annual meetings, due to the state's passage of anti-gay Proposition 8, which barred gay marriage in California. Both organizations made the decision to go forward with their meetings as previously planned but added programming to their conferences to affirm their opposition to the anti-gay legislation. The newly passed Georgia law mimics anti-immigrant legislation recently passed in Arizona. The Arizona law, the first such far-reaching measure in the country, requires immigrants to carry immigrant registra tion documents at all times and obligates the police to ascertain immigra tion status during detentions or arrests when there is a "reasonable suspicion" that the person may be an undocumented immigrant, all of which can lead to racial profiling and unfair targeting of foreign-born people. 468 News and Views 469 The Georgia bill, HB 87, was signed into law by the Georgia state gover nor on May 13. It authorizes law enforcement officers to check immigra tion status in the course of various routine activities, including traffic stops; establishes criminal penalties for people who encourage an undocumented person to come into the state or who transport or harbor undocumented people once they arrive in the state; and requires employers to use a flawed database to evaluate employee's immigration status. The mandated use of the database, E-Verify, because its data have a low level of accuracy, will likely result in many foreign-born legal workers wrongfully being deprived of their right to work. The portion of the law prohibiting the transport of undocumented people has no exemption for ambulance drivers or public transportation employees; and the prohibition against harboring undocu mented people has no exemption for universities, where undocumented students might reside, or for nonemergency medical care units. In addition to the racial profiling that this law will bring about, law enforcement offi cials have raised concerns that it undermines public trust in the communi ties in which they work, severely hampering their ability to provide adequate protection to those communities. Activist groups in Georgia immediately called for an international travel, tourism, and convention boycott of the state, requesting that organ izations join in the boycott both as a demonstration of solidarity and as an attempt to pressure the state through economic means to rescind the law. The activist group Somos Georgia/We Are Georgia, committed to immi grant, racial, and economic justice (http://www.wearegeorgia.org), organ ized the boycott efforts. They have partnered with Southerners on New Ground (SONG, http://www.southernersonnewground.org), founded to advance lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer multi-racial, multi issued education and organizing in order to "combat the Right's strategies of fragmentation and division"; and the National Day Laborers Organizing Network (NDLON, http://ndlon.org), whose mission is to improve the lives of day laborers in the United States and to mobilize day laborers in order to protect and expand their civil, labor, and human rights. Before the anti-immigrant legislation was enacted, NWSA's president, Bonnie Thornton Dill, brought the issue to the attention of NWSA's exec utive committee at a March 2011 meeting. The committee members 470 News and Views agreed that if the legislation passed, NWSA would have to...

L'impatto della crisi sull'inserimento degli immigrati nel mercato del lavoro dell'Italia e degli altri paesi dell'Europa meridionale

Italy, Spain, Greece and Portugal were the West European countries that received more economic immigrants in the last 20 years, becoming shortly among the European countries where the proportion of foreign-born people is largest. A peculiar trade off characterized the incorporation of immigrants in the job market of those countries: a small gap between the unemployment of immigrants and that of natives versus a huge penalization of the not few highly educated immigrant workers as regards the quality of jobs. The very recent trends of unemployment and employment rates both of immigrants and natives are analyzed on the basis of the labour force surveys. After the crisis the penalization of immigrants gets worse, although not dramatically (but in Spain), especially for females, whose labour demand remains almost steady. The returns are not so important, as the crisis affects heavily the East European countries of origin, and in Italy the proportion of immigrant workers among people in employment even goes on increasing. By contrast, a race to the bottom starts for immigrants, who are more and more employed in low skilled jobs.

Inmigración y propiedad de la vivienda: los casos de California y España, 2001-2006

En los últimos años California y España, dos contextos donde predomina la tenencia de la vivienda en propiedad, han recibido un gran volumen de inmigrantes y han experimentado una burbuja inmobiliaria que ha acabado por desinflarse. El objetivo de este artículo es analizar la propiedad de la vivienda de los extranjeros en ambos contextos entre 2001 y 2006, considerándola como un indicador de integración de los inmigrantes en las sociedades de acogida. Otros objetivos, derivados del anterior, son determinar la influencia de la nacionalidad en la propiedad de la vivienda y analizar cómo influyen los factores sociodemográficos para que nacionales y extranjeros vivan en propiedad. La modelización de las variables sociodemográficas muestra que entre 2001 y 2006 la propensión a vivir en propiedad de los extranjeros es inferior a la de los nacionales y, lo que es más importante, que el sistema residencial español les exige más esfuerzo que el californiano para vivir en propiedad.

Immigration and Educational Inequality: Examining Latino Immigrant Parents’ Engagement in U.S. Public Schools

More foreign-born people live in the United States now than ever before in the country's history. Immigrants from Latin America, primarily from Mexico, constitute the largest proportion of all immigrants. Schools are the main vehicle, sometimes the only one, to integrate immigrant families and their children into U.S. society. This article, argues, however that broader social inequities affecting Latino immigrants infiltrate the practices of the public school system, galvanizing educational inequality around (perceived) deficiencies of Latino families, including their immigration status, via subtle (and often not so subtle) exclusion of Latino parents from active participation in the schools. We argue that the constructs of language proficiency, socioeconomic status, immigration status, and race/ethnicity pose challenges to Latino children and parents in U.S. society and its schools. A convergence of these 4 constructs creates vulnerabilities that constrict the opportunities for many Latinos. This article proposes that limited parental and community engagement can be understood as consequences of social inequities which remain unaddressed in the institutional context of public education.

Epidemiologic Differences between Native-Born and Foreign-Born Black People Diagnosed with HIV Infection in 33 U.S. States, 2001–2007

Few studies have examined the extent to which foreign-born people contribute to the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) epidemic among non-Hispanic black people in the U.S. We sought to determine differences in the epidemiology of HIV infection among native- and foreign-born black people, using data from the national HIV surveillance system of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We estimated the number of HIV infections among black adults and adolescents diagnosed from 2001 to 2007 in 33 U.S. states. We compared annual HIV diagnosis rates, distributions of demographic characteristics and HIV-transmission risk factors, late diagnoses of HIV infection, and survival after an acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) diagnosis for native- and foreign-born black people. From 2001 to 2007, an estimated 100,013 black adults and adolescents were diagnosed with HIV infection in 33 U.S. states, for which country-of-birth information was available. Of these, 11.7% were foreign-born, with most from the Caribbean (54.1%) and Africa (41.5%). Annual HIV diagnoses decreased by 5.5% per year (95% confidence interval [CI] -5.9, -5.0) among native-born black people. Decreases were small among foreign-born black people (-1.3%; 95% CI -2.6, -0.1), who were more likely to be female, have HIV infection attributable to high-risk heterosexual contact, be diagnosed with AIDS within 12 months of HIV diagnosis, and survive one year and three years after an AIDS diagnosis. The epidemiology of HIV infection differs for foreign-born black individuals compared with their native-born counterparts in the U.S. These data can be used to develop culturally appropriate and relevant HIV-prevention interventions.

Determinants of oral health care utilization among diverse groups of immigrants in New York City

Few studies have examined utilization of oral health care services among immigrants. The authors examined the determinants of utilization of oral health care among a diverse group of immigrants in New York City. The authors examined and interviewed 1,417 foreign-born people, aged 18 to 65 years, who were residents of New York City. They conducted examinations by using criteria established by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, Bethesda, Md. The authors used unconditional logistic regression to estimate odds ratios (ORs) and 95 percent confidence intervals for having visited a dentist within the previous year for each of the independent variables. More than 70 percent of the participants lacked dental insurance and only about 31 percent reported that they had visited a dentist within the previous year. Flossing (OR = 1.18), dental insurance (OR = 1.58), having a regular source of dental care (OR = 4.76) and more filled teeth (1.33) were independent predictors of utilization of services. Having a regular source of dental care and having dental insurance are important predictors of immigrants' utilization of oral health care services in New York City. The study results suggest the importance of establishing affordable, culturally appropriate, community-based oral health care services to improve the oral health of vulnerable populations.

Does Immigration Stimulate Foreign Trade? Evidence from Sweden

Foreign born people are uniquely qualified to stimulate trade between their present country of residence and the country in which they were born. This study provides an empirical investigation of the link between migration and trade flows for Sweden. Trade and migration data for Sweden and 180 partner countries between 2002 and 2007 are used to estimate an augmented gravity model. The results show a statistically strong, positive and robust link between migration and increased trade flows. The analysis derives the effect from the ability of foreignborn people to improve the flow of information between Sweden and their former home countries. This study argues, in light of the findings, that immigration can be used as an instrument for increased foreign trade and that the issue of migration thus deserves increased focus in trade policy and economic policy.

Trends in tuberculosis mortality in the United States, 1990-2006: a population-based case-control study.

We assessed demographic and temporal trends of tuberculosis (TB)-related deaths in the United States and examined associated comorbidities listed on death certificates. We analyzed TB-related mortality from 1990 through 2006 by examining multiple-cause-of-death data from the National Center for Health Statistics. We assessed age-adjusted mortality rates, secular trends, associations with demographic variables, and comorbid conditions. From 1990 through 2006, TB was reported as a cause of death among 53,505 people in the U.S. with a combined overall mean age-adjusted mortality rate of 1.16 per 100,000 person-years. The age-adjusted TB mortality rate declined from 2.22 per 100,000 person-years in 1990 to 0.47 per 100,000 person-years in 2006, demonstrating mean annual decline of about 10%. People aged 75 years and older; males; foreign-born people; and those of Hispanic, Asian, black, and Native American race/ethnicity had comparatively elevated TB-related mortality rates. The mortality rate in foreign-born people was more than two times higher than in U.S.-born people. About 89% of deaths among people of Asian race/ethnicity and nearly 50% among black people were foreign-born individuals. Human immunodeficiency virus and selected autoimmune diseases were more common in TB-related deaths. TB mortality decreased substantially from 1990 through 2006, but remains an important cause of preventable mortality. The observed decrease was more pronounced among U.S.-born people than among foreign-born people. Disparities in TB-related mortality and the identification of important comorbid conditions can inform strategies targeting subpopulations at increased risk for fatal TB infection.

Expanding Entrepreneurship: Female and Foreign-Born Founders of New England Biotechnology Firms

Research on immigrant entrepreneurs in the United States has focused on small businesses in the retail and food service sectors rather than on high-technology start ups. Scholarship on women and immigrants in the U.S. science and technology workforce has focused on academia rather than scientists in industry. This article aims to bridge the gaps in these two literatures by examining the role of women and immigrants in founding science-based biotechnology firms. This research thus speaks to the sociological perspective on power inequalities for women and foreign-born people in entrepreneurship and in the U.S. science and technology workforce. Opportunities and barriers vary by organizational context, and the flexibility of the biotechnology industry has previously been found to benefit female scientists. But what of foreign-born scientists and women who play founding roles in biotech firms? A survey conducted of 261 biotechnology firms located in Massachusetts and New England in 2006 provides the data. The results show that 42% of the firms had at least one foreign-born founder, and 21% of firms had at least one female founder. These numbers suggest that foreign-born life scientists are well represented and female life scientists are somewhat underrepresented in founding roles in biotech. The role of entrepreneurs who have the double status of female immigrants is less clear and needs further study. The research finds significant variation in biotech entrepreneurship of immigrants by their world region of origin. Interviews supplement the survey data to illustrate the barriers and opportunities for foreign-born biotech entrepreneurs.

Migrants' perceptions of using interpreters in health care

The number of foreign-born people who do not share a common language has increased due to extensive international migration, which will increase in the future. There is limited knowledge about the users' perceptions of interpreters in health care. To describe how individuals from former Yugoslavia, living in Sweden, perceived the use of interpreters in Swedish healthcare services. A phenomenographic approach was employed. Data were collected by semi-structured interviews during 2006-2007 with 17 people, aged 29-75 years, from former Yugoslavia, living in Sweden. Three descriptive categories were identified: (1) prerequisites for good interpretation situations; (2) the interpretation situation - aspects of satisfaction or dissatisfaction; and (3) measures to facilitate and improve the interpreter situation. The interpreter's competence, attitude, appearance and an appropriate environment are important prerequisites for interpretation. The interpreter was perceived as being a communication aid and a guide in the healthcare system in terms of information and practical issues, but also as a hindrance. A desirable professional interpreter was perceived as highly skilled in medical terminology and language, working in face-to-face interaction. Using an interpreter was perceived as a hindrance, though also needed in communication with healthcare staff and as a guide in the healthcare system. Face-to-face interaction was preferred, with the interpreter as an aid to communication. As part of individual care planning it is important to use interpreters according to the patients' desires. Healthcare organizations and guidelines for interpreters need to be developed in order for patients to have easy access to highly skilled professional interpreters.

Tuberculosis Epidemiology, Diagnosis and Infection Control Recommendations for Dental Settings: An Update on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Guidelines

Although rates of tuberculosis (TB) in the United States have decreased in recent years, disparities in TB incidence still exist between U.S.-born and foreign-born people (people living in the United States but born outside it) and between white people and nonwhite people. In addition, the number of TB outbreaks among health care personnel and patients has decreased since the implementation of the 1994 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines to prevent transmission of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. In this article, the authors provide updates on the epidemiology of TB, advances in TB diagnostic methods and TB infection control guidelines for dental settings. In 2008, 83 percent of all reported TB cases in the United States occurred in nonwhite people and 17 percent occurred in white people. Foreign-born people had a TB rate about 10 times higher than that of U.S.-born people. New blood assays for M. tuberculosis have been developed to diagnose TB infection and disease. Changes from the 1994 CDC guidelines incorporated into CDC's "Guidelines for Preventing the Transmission of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in Health-Care Settings, 2005" include revised risk classifications, new TB diagnostic methods, decreased frequencies of tuberculin skin testing in various settings and changes in terminology. Although the principles of TB infection control have remained the same, the changing epidemiology of TB and the advent of new diagnostic methods for TB led to the development of the 2005 update to the 1994 guidelines. Dental health care personnel should be aware of the modifications that are pertinent to dental settings and incorporate them into their overall infection control programs.