Impact of socio-economic inequities on the mortality of the city of Fortaleza, Ceara, Brazil during 2007

Background: Brazil is an important example to study the situation of poverty and its determinants. Brazil owns a great part of the poor population of Latin America and presents great potential to eradicate this situation. The present study tries to show the association between the mortality risk and poverty in the city of Fortaleza. Methods: Cross-sectional ecological study, the unit of analysis was the districts of the city of Fortaleza. We included any death happened during year 2007. Mortality data were obtained through Unique System of Health, socioeconomic indicators and number of inhabitants was extracted from the Census of Inhabitants and Houses of the Brazilian Institute of Statistics of the year 2000. An index composed from the main simple indicators of deprivation was calculated using a Cluster technique. The deprivation index was divided in five groups, group I presented the best socio-economic conditions and group 5 the worst ones. Correlation analysis was done to evaluate the association between socioeconomic level and mortality. Results: We observed a significant association of the socioeconomic level with total mortality (p<0,001), circulatory disease (p<0,001) and external causes (p<0,001). In addition, 86% of the cases of aggression happened in groups 4 and 5. Conclusions: The results show a relation between socioeconomic conditions and mortality by any cause, by circulatory causes and by external causes.