Brazil

Disease and Health:Brazil

Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazill is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 190 million people. It is the only Portuguese-speaking country in the Americas and the largest lusophone country in the world.

Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean on the east, Brazil has a coastline of over 7,491 kilometers (4,655 mi). It is bordered on the north by Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and the French overseas department of French Guiana; on the northwest by Colombia; on the west by Bolivia and Peru; on the southwest by Argentina and Paraguay and on the south by Uruguay. Numerous archipelagos form part of Brazilian territory, such as Fernando de Noronha, Rocas Atoll, Saint Peter and Paul Rocks, and Trindade and Martim Vaz. It has borders with all other South American countries apart from Ecuador and Chile.

[|Flag] [|Fig] 1.1 [|Fig] 1.2 This graph shows Brazil over the couse of 40 years. We see in Fig 1.1 that infant mortality decrease while life expectancy increases too. We also see in Fig 1.2 that Brazil is in a similiar position to China as well as Saudi Arabia. While Brazil is 18.3 IMR and 72.439 LE, China has 17.77 IMRand 73.099 LE while Saudi Arabia has 18.4 IMR and 72.882 LE. This is not very far from the world average which is 75, however, it has a lower IMR than the world average which is 43.52.

__** Infant Mortality **__

We can see that the Infant mortality rate has decreased rapidly over the 20th century. From 48 in the 1990s, it has gone down to 19 in 2006!  [|Source] Brazil's neighboruing country, Bolivia has and incredibly high infant mortality rate. Brazil has an IMR of 48 while Bolivia has an IMR of 89.

__** Life Expectancy: **__ -Current Life Expectancy for Men: 68 -Current Life Expectancy for Women: 75

[|Source]

Brazil's Life expectancy has increased over a period of 16 years from 67 to 72. However life expectancy has stayed the same for males from 2000 to 2006 only increasing from 67 to 68 whereas, females in Brazil life expectancy has a steady increased from 72 to 75 during 2000 to 2006. Overall life expectancy has steadily increased from 1990 to 2006 and will continue to do so.

//Nutrition, degenerative, water/vector borne, accidental// || [|Source]
 * Leading Causes of Death **
 * Disease || Number of total deaths by disease || % of total Deaths || **Cause (may fit more than one category)**
 * Coronary Heart Disease || 140,799 || 13.40 || Degenerative ||
 * Stroke || 129,249 || 12.30 || Degenerative ||
 * Influenza & Pnuemonia || 72,209 || 6.87 || Water/Vector bourne ||
 * Violence || 57,250 || 5.45 || Accidental ||
 * Diabetes Mellitus || 55,399 || 5.27 || Degenerative/Nutrition ||
 * Lung Disease || 50,489 || 4.81 || Degenerative/Enviromental ||
 * Hypertension || 44,048 || 4.19 || Degenerative ||
 * Road Traffic Accidents || 40,401 || 3.85 || Accidents ||
 * Diarrhoeal diseases || 28,920 || 2.75 || Water/Vector bourne ||
 * Prostate Cancer || 22,869 || 2.18 || Degenerative ||
 * Liver Disease || 22,714 || 2.16 || Degenerative/Lifestyle ||
 * Inflammatory/Heart || 22,477 || 2.14 || Lifestyle/Degenerative ||
 * Lung Cancers || 22,339 || 2.13 || Degenerative/Enviroment ||
 * Low Birth Weight || 21,676 || 2.06 || Nutrition ||
 * Breast Cancer || 20,947 || 1.99 || Degenerative ||

The average life expectancy of the world is 68.9 (2009). Brazil has a higher life expectancy, 72. This shows that Brazil has good health care and the governement puts health care as a priority of the country. Healthcare in Brazil is provided by both private and governmental instituitions. Even though IMR has increased steadily over the century, mortality rates are still high by international standards. However, according to UNICEF, Brazil has been ranked amongst the 25 nations with the best improvement in survival rates of children under the age of 5. In fact, mortality rates for children at one year of age was 18 per thousand, a reduction of 60%. The main causes of deaths are coronary heart disease, stroke, influenza and violence. 3 of the top five are degenerative. However, many other factors contribute to the causes of death. As we know, Brazil is a tropical country and it experiences humid and wet weather, this makes water/vector bourne disease spread easily and rapidly. This also can be one reason for strokes. However, violence doesn't fit it. Violence causes 5.45% of deaths in Brazil, that's 57,250 people! This can be due to social conflict, political conflict or coruption. In conclusion, even though Brazil's life expectancy is higher than average, it's infant mortality is still below international standards, this means that Brazil is still a developing country, yet to improve. We should see IMR leasen and life expectancy increase.