| Summary: | Introduction: Poverty is a sensible determinant of the health status of a population
Objective: To study the departmental and regional inequality of the infant mortality
rate (IMR) in Colombia in 1993 and 2005.
Methods: an ecological study that measures the regional inequalities of the IMR in
Colombia was carried out for the years of the population census of 1993 and 2005. For
this, indicators as incidence rate (IR) and difference of rates (DR), effects index and
Population-attributable risk (PAR), were used.
Results: In 1993, the absolute difference between the departments with major and
minor poverty (Chocó: 80.4%; Bogotá, D.C.:17.3%) was 63.1%. For 2005, this
difference became 70.4%. For the same years, between these departments the IR
of infant mortality was 2.9 and 4.2 and the DR was 56.4 and 59.2, respectively. The
poverty (UBN) explained, to a large extent, the infant mortality in 2005 in comparison
with 1993 (R22005: 63.8% versus R21993: 34.2%). The β coefficient of the lineal
regression for 1993 was 0.3393 (CI95%:0.1669-0.5518) and by each percent point
that the UBN decreased in the departments, a reduction in the IMR of 0.3393 deaths
by each one thousand born alive was observed. For 2005, this reduction was 0.6456 by
each one thousand born alive (CI95%:0,4679-0.8234).
Conclusions: Although Colombia maintains a tendency of permanent reduction of the
IMR, big inequalities between departments and regions increased in the intercensal
period analyzed.. Rev.cienc.biomed. 2015;6(1):29-37
KEYWORDS
Health inequalities; Infant mortality; Poverty; Social inequality.
|
|---|
