[Uterus cervix cancer mortality: socio-demographic characteristics of women living in the city of Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil].

PURPOSE to describe the socio-demographic characteristics of deaths caused by uterine cervix cancer in women living in Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil, from 2000 to 2004. METHODS a transversal populational study, including 323 deaths by uterine cervix cancer, among which 261 were recorded in the Information System about Mortality and 62 were identified after investigation on deaths by cancer at non-specified sites of the uterus. Mortality rate for all the variables was obtained and statistics for central tendency and variance were calculated. The chi2 test was performed to obtain the mortality coefficient concerning the living place and age range of the patients. RESULTS death among women under 60 (54.7%), black (60.5%), single (67.6%), housewives (71.2%) and the ones living in poor neighborhood (53.3%) preponderated. Most of deaths occurred in hospitals (85.1%) and 90.2% of them occurred inside national health system hospitals. The mortality coefficient varied from 0.3 (among women under 30) to 54.9/100.00 (among women over 80). Significant statistical differences (p<0.05) were evidenced when death linked to age range and sanitary district was compared to characteristics of the female population living in the city. CONCLUSIONS in Recife, death by cervix cancer are more frequent among adult, black, single, housewives, women living in poor neighborhoods and attended to at national health system hospitals, with differences in death risk among age ranges and living place.