TRENDS OF INDUCED ABORTION IN BRAZIL BETWEEN 2000 AND 2010, BASED ON INDIRECT ESTIMATES OF HOSPITAL RECORDS

The objective of this paper is to present an update of estimates of induced abortion in Brazil based on the statistics of hospitalization for abortion in national and regional levels, using as a data source the Hospital Information System of the Unified Health System (SIH-SUS) for the years 2000 to 2010. The estimation of the incidence of abortion is carried out by the method known as AICM, proposed by Singh and colleagues, after the necessary adjustments for the Brazilian data. The results indicates that induced abortion rates are declining in Brazil in all regions (except the North), although the incidence of induced abortion is still high for a country where contraceptive use is high, which indicates the existence of significant flaws in the use of contraception and the need to correct them. Other important findings relate to age: as the women's age increases, there is also an exponential increase in the number of hospitalizations for abortion in relation to the number of live births, and a decrease in abortion rates in relation to the female population in childbearing age (15-49).