FioCruz (Oswaldo Cruz Foundation) published this Thursday (30) IDS (Index of Health Inequality). The disclosure of the Fund’s information shows that in the Southern region, the situation with social inequities in relation to health has improved.

IDS is calculated based on socio-economic, socio-demographic and health data – Photo: Marcello Casal Jr/Agência Brasil/ND

IDS-Covid-19 was calculated based on socio-economic, socio-demographic and health services access data. The researchers also used census data from IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) and CNES (National Register of Medical Devices) to determine the number of beds in intensive care units and respirators. From the Brazilian deprivation index, income, education and housing conditions are taken.

The Southern Region did not have any of the 1,188 municipalities ranked in the worst group before the pandemic (February 2020).

Even with a “slight reduction”, as FioCruz identified, 65 of the 84 municipalities that were ranked among the most unequal in the Southern Region at the beginning of the pandemic remain in this state.

other regions

According to the Fund, after the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to IDS-Covid-19 data, only 3% of the municipalities in the Northern Region were able to reduce the conditions of health inequalities.

Compared to municipalities in the Southern Region, for example, 8% of them showed a reduction in inequality. The region has the largest proportion of municipalities in the worst situation of inequality.

In the Midwest, according to IDS-Covid-19 calculations, there is a distribution along different levels of inequality. However, there are still more places ranked in the two worst groups in terms of social inequity in health.

Levels in other regions fluctuate between intermediate and worst groups – Photo: Marcelo Camargo/Agência Brasil/Disclosure/ND

In the southeast, the levels are intermediate. In the state of Minas Gerais, at the beginning of the pandemic, 50% of municipalities were in the last two groups with the worst inequality situation, while 33% were in between.

In São Paulo, 41% of municipalities were in the lowest inequality groups, while 11.3% were in the bottom two positions. According to the index, in Rio de Janeiro, of the 92 municipalities that make up the state, 39 started the pandemic in the worst situations related to inequality, and 28 of them maintained their place during the periods analyzed by the researchers.

Prior to the pandemic, 98% of the municipalities in the Northern Region were in clusters 4 and 5, the two worst groups classified by IDS-Covid-19. The South East region had 35% of the municipalities, while the South had only 7%.