Adolescent mortality with special reference to maternal mortality, Brazil, 1980

Abstract

Basing their research on data from official statistics, the Brazilian adolescent mortality for the year 1980, is studied. Despite the low over-all adolescent mortality rate some important causes of death were analysed. Almost half the deaths were due to external causes (47.22%). Diseases of the circulatory system were the second largest group of causes of death (6.87%), followed by infectious diseases (6.36%) and neoplasms (5.98%). Complications of pregnancy, delivery and puerperium were responsible for 4 per cent of the deaths of women from 10 to 19 years of age. For women aged 15 to 19, these deaths accounted for 6.14% of all deaths, thus taking, for this specific age-group, 6th place among the principal causes of death. In the group with complications related to pregnancy the principal causes of death were hypertension, puerperal infections, hemorrhages and abortion.