Citation

Costa C, Freitas A, Almendra R, Santana P. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2020; 17(22): e8517.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, MDPI: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute)

DOI

10.3390/ijerph17228517

PMID

33212953

Abstract

There is considerable evidence pointing to the existence of a socioeconomic gradient in mortality, which tends to be steeper in urban areas. Similar to other European cities, Lisbon is far from homogeneous since considerable geographical inequalities exist between the more advantaged and the more deprived neighborhoods. The main goals of this study are to describe the geographical pattern of premature deaths (before 65 years old), avoidable deaths (preventable and amenable to healthcare) and cause-specific mortality (HIV/AIDS and suicide) in Lisbon, at the lower administrative level (civil parish, in Portuguese: Freguesia), and analyze the statistical association between mortality risk and deprivation, before (1999-2003) and during the economic crisis (2008-2012). Smoothed Standardized Mortality Ratios (sSMR) and Relative Risk (RR) with 95% credible intervals were calculated to identify the association between mortality and deprivation. The analysis of the geographical distribution of cause-specific mortality reveals that civil parishes with high sSMR in the first period continued to present higher mortality rates in the second. Moreover, a significant statistical association was found between all the causes of death and deprivation, except suicide. These findings contribute to understanding how social conditions influence health outcomes and can offer insights about potential policy directions for local government.

Language: en

Keywords

preventable deaths; suicide; urban health; HIV/AIDS; amenable deaths due to healthcare; area deprivation; avoidable deaths; cities; geography; inequalities; premature mortality