Epidemiology of unsafe abortion in a poverty stricken environment Favela Inajar de Souza, São Paulo, Brazil

Revista Brasileira de Epidemiologia

Andreoni, Solange¹  Silva, Rebeca de Souza e¹  Fusco, Carmen L. B.¹ 

[1]Universidade Federal de São Paulo

关键词: Unsafe Abortion;    Epidemiology;    Poverty;    Maternal Mortality;    Vulnerability;    Social Inequity;   

DOI  :  10.1590/S1415-790X2008000100007

学科分类：过敏症与临床免疫学

来源: SciELO

【 摘 要 】

This article comparesthe results of a survey carried out recently in a poverty stricken environmentin São Paulo, Brazil – a country where abortion is illegalin most circumstances- to data from Cuba – where abortion is safeand legal, and data registries are reliable. A cross-sectional survey was conductedin a community in the north side of the city, called Favela Inajar de Souza,with the purpose of estimating the frequency of unsafe, clandestine abortionsand identifying socio-demographic characteristics and morbidity related to abortionin a poor population. All women aged 15 to 54 years that lived in this community(Census) were interviewed for this survey. The Chi-Square Test and the Fisherexact test were used for categorical variables, and analysis of variance wasused for numeric variables. Throughout the analysis, the statistical significancelevel of 5% (p<0.05) was adopted. A high number of unsafe abortions and ahigh rate of post-abortion complications were detected in the studied population– the community of Favela Inajar. With regard to induced abortions,the only common features between the two populations were age and civil status.As opposed to what happens in Cuba, the analysis of the data from Favela Inajarshows that there were statistically significant associations between unsafeabortion and: income, educational level, internal migration and ethnicity. Thesefindings indicate that this population is particularly vulnerable to unsafeabortion in face of the several forms of structural violence present in Brazil,which produce social inequity. The performance of safe and legal abortion, asis the case in Cuba, would change this scenario. Legalization of abortion inBrazil would mostly benefit poor women.

【 授权许可】

CC BY