Impacts of Brazilian Regional Disparities on Cervical Cancer Mortality: An Epidemiological Analysis
Rafaela Sumienski Girardi, Juliana Boaventura, Sofia Zilio, Henrique Ries de Souza CarbonePURPOSE
This research aims to evaluate if socio-spatial disparities among Brazilian macro-regions have any impacts in mortality from cervical cancer, given that it is a preventable and treatable disease if discovered in its early stages.
METHODS
The data were extracted from Brazilian database DataSUS/TABNET, in its search about mortality rates from cervical cancer (ICD-10: C53) among regions. And form the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistic (IBGE), in its last Census (2022), to calculate the mortality rates relatively in each region, per 100,000 women. Then, the mortality rates from each region were compared to analyse if there are connections between regional disparities and mortality by cervical cancer.
RESULTS
Analysing the data found in DataSUS/TABNET, we discovered that in 2024, the most recent year the database has data from, there was a total of 7,493 deaths from cervical cancer in Brazil, being 957 of residents of the North macro region, 1,156 of residents of the South, 594 of the Midwest, 2,481 of the Southeast and 2,305 of the Northeast. However, when we examine the relative mortality rates, per 100,000 women, calculated with the female population from the 2022 IBGE Census, we get as a result that the North has a 11.01 rate, South has a 7.53, Midwest has a 7.17, Southeast has a 5.64 and Northeast has a 8.16.
CONCLUSION
As data shows, the number of deaths from cervical cancer is vastly larger in the Southeast region, but, given that it has the larger population in all the five macro-regions, the mortality rate drops significantly, being the lower rate of the group (5.64). Conversely, the North region, despite fewer absolute number of deaths, exhibits a nearly doubled mortality rate (11.01) compared to the Southeast. These findings indicate a significant impact from regional disparities in cervical cancer survival, highlighting probable gaps in screening, early diagnosis and healthcare access in the regions with higher mortality rates, going against Brazil’s constitutional right for universal equality in healthcare.