Urban rural disparities in mortality by subgroups of cause in brazilian municipalities

Abstract

This article aimed to present the general mortality rates for five major groups of causes of death in Brazil, according to urban and rural aspects. An ecological study was carried out with local data from Brazil. The population projection was obtained by the Brazilian Statistics Institute and mortality data were collected from the Mortality Information System of the Unified Health System. Mortality rates for the subgroups of causes of death were obtained according to the International Disease Code. The standardized mortality rate was calculated for each subgroup of causes of death and subsequently the cities were compared using the ANOVA test. Data analysis for this study was performed using R version 3.6.0. The analysis of mortality rates among the subgroups of causes showed that cerebrovascular diseases, cancers associated with infections, acute infectious diseases and acute respiratory diseases showed higher mortality in rural municipalities, and decreased as the size of the municipalities increased. Ischemic heart diseases, lifestyle cancers, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases and infectious diseases, on the other hand, had a greater magnitude in groups of typically urban municipalities. The discussion on urban-rural mortality differentials needs to be improved. In this sense, the importance of promoting public health programs that focus on the rural population of high poverty is emphasized, as a promising strategy to deal with disparities in mortality.