Infant mortality rates in quilombo areas of the Municipality of Santarém - Pará, Brazil

Abstract

This paper is a preliminary analysis of the infant mortality rates in areas of quilombos (hiding places of runaway slaves) in the city of Santarém, state of Pará. It is a Domiciliary Census Research developed from March to April 2006, through procedures based on the active search of data related to deaths of children in their first year of life, including the identification of non-registered births in the populations of dry land and floodplain communities. The mortality levels were obtained through indirect estimation technique. A difference was found concerning the death of children under one year old regarding dry land and floodplain quilombo areas: 30.4 deaths / 1,000 live births and 50.2 deaths / 1,000 live births, respectively. The results of this study reveal an indisputable inequality, considering that mortality rates in these communities are much higher when compared to the country's total percentages (27 deaths / 1,000 live births). Moreover, none of the mortality rates in the quilombos has reached satisfactory levels when compared to the parameters established by the Ministry of Health in 2005 (less than 20 deaths / 1,000 live births). This paper shows that while infant mortality rates have been decreasing all over the country, in the quilombos, especially those of the floodplains, the probability that a child dies before her first birthday is high, surpassing the national, regional and state averages, and being classified as high according to the criteria established by the Ministry of Health.