Urban as a determinant of health

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/55423/1/vlahov_urban as a determinant_2007.pd

Hospitalizations during infancy in three population-based studies in Southern Brazil: trends and differentials

Three cohort studies of children born in the urban area of Pelotas, Southern Brazil, were carried out in 1982, 1993, and 2004. The aim of these studies was to measure the occurrence of hospitalization in the first year of life and to examine the association between hospitalization and the cause of admission and sex, birth weight, and family income. Cause of admission was categorized as “diarrhea” and “all other causes”. The frequency of children hospitalized at least once during their first year of life was 19.6% in 1982, 18.1% in 1993, and 19.2% in 2004. There was a marked reduction in hospitalizations due to diarrhea, but the frequency of hospitalization for all causes remained constant. In all three cohorts, infants from poorer families and those born weighing under 2,000g showed the highest frequencies of hospitalization due to diarrhea and all other causes, and the latter also showed a marked increase in hospitalizations due to all causes. These findings could be explained by an epidemic of preterm births in the study population.Foram organizadas três coortes de crianças nascidas na área urbana de Pelotas, Rio Grande do Sul, em 1982, 1993 e 2004. O presente estudo teve como objetivos medir a ocorrência de hospitalização no primeiro ano de vida e estudar a associação entre hospitalização e causa de internação e sexo, peso ao nascer e renda familiar. As causas de internação eram categorizadas como “diarréia” e “todas as outras causas”. As proporções de crianças hospitalizadas pelo menos uma vez durante o primeiro de ano de vida foram 19,6% em 1982, 18,1% em 1993 e 19,2% em 2004. Houve uma redução marcante nas internações por diarréia, enquanto permanecia constante a freqüência de internações por todas as causas. Nas três coortes, as crianças de famílias mais pobres e aquelas que nasceram com peso abaixo de 2000g mostraram as freqüências mais elevadas de internações por diarréia e por todas as outras causas, e a coorte de 2004 também mostrou um aumento marcante nas internações por todas as causas. Os achados podem ser explicados por uma epidemia de nascimentos prematuros na população estudada

Path of infectious diseases in Brazil in the last 50 years: an ongoing challenge

ABSTRACT In this article, we comment on the main features of infectious diseases in Brazil in the last 50 years, highlighting how much of this path Revista de Saúde Pública could portray. From 1967 to 2016, 1,335 articles focusing on infectious diseases were published in Revista de Saúde Pública. Although the proportion of articles on the topic have decreased from about 50.0% to 15.0%, its notability remained and reflected the growing complexity of the research required for its control. It is noteworthy that studies design and analysis strategies progressively became more sophisticated, following the great development of epidemiology in Brazil in the recent decades. Thus, the journal has followed the success of public health interventions that permitted to control or eliminate numerous infectious diseases – which were responsible, in the past, for high rates of morbidity and mortality –, and also followed the reemergence of diseases already controlled and the emergence of until then unknown diseases, with a strong impact on the Brazilian population, establishing a little predictable and very challenging path