The scope of this paper is to discuss the evolution of mortality due to cervical cancer in the State of Paraná, Brazil, between 1980 and 2000 and analyze the socioeconomic differentials in each region of the State. Mortality data were gathered from the System for Information on Mortality by age and town of residence. Age-adjusted death rates were calculated for 22 regions of the state in each year. Comparative analysis evaluated socioeconomic indicators associated with regions that showed either stationary or increasing mortality trends. Cervical cancer deaths increased in the state of Paraná, with an annual percentage increase of 1.68% (1.20 to 2.17, 95% confidence interval). Most of the regions presented a stationary trend of cervical cancer deaths. The comparison of regions presenting an increasing trend indicated poorer socioeconomic indices for the former set: regions with an increase in cervical cancer mortality had a significantly higher illiteracy rate (p<0.001), percentage of individuals older than 15 years with less than 4 years schooling (p=0.001), and lower per-capita income (p=0.025) and human development index (p=0.023). An increasing mortality trend was thus observed throughout the State and areas with higher mortality rates had poorer socioeconomic indices.
Cervical cancer; Epidemiology; Mortality; Cancer; Statistics models; Trends
