Tendencias en la mortalidad por desnutrición en menores de 5 años y mayores de 60 años

Introduction: Children under 5 years of age living in poor areas and with low availability of healthy food have higher risk of undernutrition-related mortality. However, this relationship among older adults is not well established. Aim: To analyse trends in socioeconomic inequalities in undernutrition-mortality in children under five years of age and adults over 60 years old in municipalities of Colombia during 2003-2009 and 2010-2016. Methods: ecological study of trends during 2003 and 2016. The study population consisted of children under five years of age and adults over 60 years of age residing in the Colombian municipalities during the study period. We estimated smoothed and standardized mortality rates by fitting a hierarchical Bayesian model and explored their relationship with five socio-economic area-level variables. Results: In most of the municipalities, undernutrition-related mortality was three times higher in older adults compared to children. Moreover, the difference between municipalities in the risk of undernutrition-related mortality showed a marked reduction. Finally, it was observed that the poor and less developed municipalities have higher rates of undernutrition-related mortality in children, but on the contrary, wealthier territories have higher rates in older adults. Conclusions: although most of the municipalities have decreased their mortality rates due to undernutrition in children under five and older adults, the socioeconomic conditions of the municipalities influence differently the risk of mortality for children and for older adults. This implies the need to develop age-specific strategies to close social gaps when structural conditions of the areas are taking into account