Modeling of mortality in elderly women by cardiovascular diseases in Brazil

The Brazilian Northeast is historically considered one of the least developed regions of Lain America. It features deficient vital statistics, which hinders the ability of management and development of public health policies. Aiming at identifying explanatory factors of life conditions and vulnerability of the major causes of mortality of elderly women by cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) in the northeastern of Brazil in 2010, an ecological study was carried out in 188 northeastern micro regions. The population data was taken from Census 2010 and mortality data from the Brazilian Ministry of Health. Two models were compared and the outcome variable mortality rate due to CVD was directly observed in model-1 and estimated by four major underlying causes in model-2. The Structural Equations Modeling (SEM) used showed better adjustments to final model-1, with significance in the measurement model for the indicators – years of study, percentage of elderly women living in homes with bathroom and water supply, probability of living to 60 years old – and fit indicators of the structural model. The SEM proved to be highly sensitive.