Material from a community survey carried out in rural areas of Karnataka by the National Tuberculosis Institute, Bangalore, has been analysed in an attempt to identify significant categories of the population that may yield higher proportion of cases. In all, 170 cases diagnosed among 61,581 persons have been distributed by their role, i.e., head of family (HOF) or not, kinship, (relationship to the HOF) by age and sex.

It has been observed that a comparatively small size of HOF male population (16.9%) would contain 55.9% of the total cases prevalent in the entire X-rayed population. On the other hand, the broad category other than HOF-male, would have case content relatively much less in proportion to their population size. Implications of the finding for house-to-house Case-finding by Multi-purpose Health Workers (HWs) are discussed here. It is possible to obtain higher case yield from the group having a higher case content which is aged 20 years and above and constitutes about 30% of the total population by confining to symptom screening. On the other hand, since cases are mostly in the HOF-males, would make it difficult for HWs to contact them in their normal visiting hours during day, as most of HOF-males may not be at home. Determined efforts have to be made by HWs to contact them during their beat schedule.