Method for estimating infant mortality and low birth weight indicators for Brazilian municipalities, 2012.

OBJECTIVE to present a method for estimating low birth weight (LBW) prevalence and infant mortality rate (IMR) indicators for Brazilian municipalities, so as to incorporate considerations with regard to sampling fluctuation. METHODS binomial and Poisson distributions were used to estimate 95% confidence intervals (95%CI); when the number of infant deaths was zero, the upper limit of the 95%CI was estimated by the cross-multiplication method; indicators were estimated for the year 2012 for demonstration purposes. RESULTS a slight increase in LBW and a decrease in IMR were detected as municipality population size increased; LBW estimates were more accurate than those for IMR; single-year estimates showed large width 95%CI in small municipalities and low reliability. CONCLUSION an electronic spreadsheet was developed which will allow service managers to estimate the precision of these indicators for their municipalities.