O tempo de percurso a cidades polos regionais influencia na mortalidade em pequenos municípios gaúchos?

Abstract

The current study aims to determine whether the time spent travelling to regional hub cities to receive healthcare affects mortality from avoidable causes and the standardized crude mortality rate in towns with up to 5,000 inhabitants in Rio Grande do Sul State, Brazil. Without adjusting for control variables, the longest time spent to reach cities with 100,000 inhabitants or more was associated with an increase in both rates. However, while the pattern in the avoidable mortality rate was similar after including controls, the standardized crude mortality rate reversed its signal. This suggests that if other socioeconomic and healthcare characteristics are kept constant, the distance to reference cities is associated with both a reduction in deaths from avoidable causes and an increase in other causes of death.