Poverty, disease and death in Argentina

Abstract

We analyze the relationship between the gross domestic product of Argentina and trends in infant, maternal and infectious morbi-mortality, through the application of descriptive correlational statistical techniques both to official and secondary data. In the period under study, national wealth showed a high rate of growth whereas infant mortality increased in 2007, even in provinces that are well provided with sanitary resources. Death of infants under one year of age by infectious diseases (e.g. acute respiratory infection and septicaemia) increased. In the last year studied there was a proportional increase in respiratory diseases and tumours in children between 1 and 4 years. Two noticeable features maternal mortality were the extreme youth of the deceased and the high incidence of direct obstetrical deaths. Infectious mortality rate adjusted by age maintained its value but showed an increase in Buenos Aires City. Congenital syphilis and leptospirosis morbidities also increased. Infant mortality rates due to social inequality showed a 3:1 ratio. Infant mortality correlates directly with illiteracy, poverty and lack of stable employment and inversely with potable water, sewage, urbanization, personal wealth and availability of medical personnel, and does not correlate with the presence of public health care. We conclude that national wealth variation is not associated to health improvement and that the availability of health care services does not guarantee better demographic indicators. Correlation of variables indicates that morbidity and mortality are strongly associated to income distribution and that health care services do not seem to have achieved the goal of levelling inequality, since there is no correlation between the factor that groups conditions reflecting income distribution inequality and the factor reflecting the supply of care services with or without patient admission, such as the current private outpatient’s services.