The techniques used in this work provide a way to examine a disease within its social context. The results confirmed that tuberculosis in California continues to be a disease of poverty and racial/ethnic minorities.

Background: Knowledge of geography is integral to the study of insect-borne infectious disease such as malaria. This study was designed to evaluate whether geographic parameters are associated with malarial infection in the East Sepik province of Papua New Guinea (PNG), a remote area where malaria is a major cause of morbidity and mortality.