Material deprivation, racial inequalities and mortality from female breast, prostate, and cervical neoplasm in the Brazilian adult population: an ecological study

Abstract

This article aims to identify the relationship between material deprivation and mortality from breast, cervical, and prostate neoplasms in the Brazilian adult population and the relationship between ethnicity/skin color and material deprivation. This cross-sectional ecological study calculated the mean mortality rate per 100,000 inhabitants, and deaths were standardized by age and gender and redistributed per to ill-defined causes, stratified by age group and ethnicity/skin color. We applied the Negative Binomial model, containing the interaction between ethnicity/skin color and the Brazilian Deprivation Index (IBP). We analyzed 85,903 deaths, and the most prevalent were those due to female breast neoplasms. The risk of death from cervical cancer was 8.5% higher for Black women than white women. In other places, mortality was higher among white people. For all causes, mortality increased with age. There was a significant interaction between ethnicity/skin color and IBP for all causes. Only deaths due to cervical neoplasms increased with higher IBP, while a decline was observed in other causes but was less significant among Black people. The IBP offers a multidimensional view of the socioeconomic conditions of the Brazilian population, allowing a better understanding of how social determinants operate on selected neoplasms.