Patterns of Geographic Variation of Mortality by Causes of Death for Small Areas in Brazil, 2010

Background The efficient planning of public health policies requires, in advance, adequate knowledge of mortality levels. Additionally, it is desirable to have a good knowledge of patterns and age structure of death causes by geographical areas. In recent years, several studies have sought to obtain adequate mortality estimates for small areas in Brazil (Queiroz et al., Revista Brasileira de Epidemiologia 20:21–33, 2017, Schmertmann and Gonzaga, Demography 55(4):1363–1388, 2018, Lima and Queiroz, Cadernos de Saude Publica 30:1721–1730, 2014, among others). These estimates allowed us in Brazil to advance in understanding about regional and time differentials in mortality. A portion of the mortality inequality in the country is associated with the social and economic conditions of each locality; however, differences in the profile of the causes of death are strongly affected by the rate of change in mortality.