SOCIAL AND DEMOGRAPHIC DETERMINANTS OF MORTALITY WITH COVID-19 IN BRAZILIAN CITIES

The COVID-19 pandemic led Brazil to second place in the mortality ranking in the world. However, the mortality rate had essential variations in the vast Brazilian territory, which led us to investigate to what extent socio-economic and urban factors, and the derived inequalities intervened in explaining the variation in the mortality rate in different regions and cities. This study aimed to verify the relative risk of mortality from COVID-19, considering each Brazilian city, seeking to understand whether race, sex, regional factors, and urban morphology conditions impacted the risk. We have two main results in this study. The first shows that the regionality and its characteristics were important and may contribute to the increase in the mortality relative risk from COVID-19. The second result revealed that the spatial incidence of comorbidities and the greater presence of black people were significant in explaining the variations in mortality rates in Brazilian cities. It demonstrates a clear indication that the conditions of structural racism are present in the access to the population to high-complexity health services, a feature of regional inequality present in Brazilian Society.