Infant mortality in Brazil in the 1990’s: what are the main determinants?

Abstract

In the 1990 Brazil experienced a sharp drop in infant mortality rates. However, this phenomenon is still worrying. Once an accurate diagnosis is essential to formulate effective public policy, the purpose of this work is to investigate what are the main determinants of infant mortality in Brazil in this period. The analysis is based on data from Brazilian Human Development Report, for the years 1991 and 2000, National Treasury and RIPSA, for the year 2000, applying a negative binomial regression. The results suggest that poverty, illiteracy, inequality of income, the percentage of female head of household with no spouse and children less than 15 years old and low apgar score are associated with higher incidence of infant mortality, while income, prenatal exams and race (white) are reducing risk.