An estimated two hundred and twenty-three thousand Australians live with hepatitis B (HBV), yet 77% of them do not receive regular clinical care and 27% of them are undiagnosed. This Evidence Check sought to identify public health interventions to reduce the incidence of HBV and to reduce the disease burden for those infected with HBV. Sixty-one papers were included in a meta-analytic review. There were no studies reporting HBV incidence as an outcome. Uptake of HBV screening in migrants from areas with high prevalence of HBV was improved by an intervention which intervention included face-to-face education (the likelihood of HBV testing 3.6 times higher in the intervention group compared to the control group). Interventions to enhance linkage to clinical care were usually multi-component, and results across studies were highly heterogeneous. In Australia the US and Europe a pooled estimate of 70% of participants were linked to care. Interventions with on-site testing or vaccination had significantly higher take-up compared to those which referred to an external site (80% compared to 54% for testing, and 78% compared to 27% for vaccination).

Citation

Hajarizadeh B, MacLachlan J, Cowie B, Dore GJ. Population-level interventions to improve the health outcomes of people living with hepatitis B: an Evidence Check brokered by the Sax Institute for the NSW Ministry of Health, 2022.
doi:10.57022/pxwj3682

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