BACKGROUND Cardiovascular diseases are the major cause of death in Brazil. OBJECTIVE To correlate cardiovascular mortality rates in the states of Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Rio Grande do Sul, and in their capitals, between 1980 and 2008, with socioeconomic indicators collected from 1949 onwards. METHODS Population and death data were obtained from the Brazilian Unified Health System data...

Population and community indicators for the impact of fishing are often estimated using abundance estimates instead of raw sampling observations. Methods are presented for testing null hypotheses of non-significant impacts and where possible, for calculating the statistical power. The indicators considered concern populations (intrinsic growth rate, total mortality, exploitation rate and a new ...

BACKGROUND Valid and reliable measures of trauma system performance are needed to guide improvement activities, benchmarking and public reporting, future investment and research. Traditional measures of in-hospital mortality fail to take into account prehospital and posthospital care, recovery after discharge, and the nature and costs of long-term disability. METHODS Drawing on recent systema...

BACKGROUND In view of the disappointing progress made in the last 20 years in reducing maternal mortality in low-income countries and before going to scale in implementing the new evidence-based strategies, it is crucial to review and assess the progress made in pilot countries where maternal mortality reduction programs focused on emergency obstetric care. OBJECTIVE To review the process ind...

BACKGROUND It is generally assumed that urban slum residents have worse health status when compared with other urban populations, but better health status than their rural counterparts. This belief/assumption is often because of their physical proximity and assumed better access to health care services in urban areas. However, a few recent studies have cast doubt on this belief. Whether slum dw...

CONTEXT Perinatal mortality indicators are considered the most important measures of perinatal outcome. The indicators reliability depends on births and deaths reporting and recording. Many publications focus on perinatal deaths underreporting and misclassification, disabling proper international comparisons. OBJECTIVE Description of perinatal health care quality assessment key indicators in ...