Fertility trends during successive novel infectious disease outbreaks: Zika and COVID-19 in Brazil

Temporal analysis of mortality from preventable causes in the first 24 hours of life, 2000-2021

OBJECTIVE

to analyze the temporal pattern and estimate mortality rates in the first 24 hours of life and from preventable causes in the state of Pernambuco from 2000 to 2021.

METHOD

an ecological study, using the quarter as the unit of analysis. The data source was made up of the Mortality Information System and the Live Birth Information System. The time series modeling was conducted according to the Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average Model.

RESULTS

14,462 deaths were recorded in the first 24 hours of life, 11,110 (76.8%) of which being preventable. It is observed from the forecasts that the mortality rate in the first 24 hours of life ranged from 3.3 to 2.4 per 1,000 live births, and the mortality rate from preventable causes ranged from 2.3 to 1.8 per 1,000 live births.

CONCLUSION

the prediction suggested progress in reducing mortality in the first 24 hours of life in the state and from preventable causes. The ARIMA models presented satisfactory estimates for mortality rates and preventable causes in the first 24 hours of life.

The relationship between staying at home during the pandemic and the number of conceptions: A national panel data analysis

hether the COVID-19 pandemic has changed fertility patterns is still an open question, as social isolation for long periods can impact the number of conceptions in many ways. We combine administrative data on all recent births in Brazil with daily data on individual location to estimate the relationship between the share of individuals staying close to their homes in each week and the number of conceptions in that same week, comparing municipalities with different social isolation patterns during the first semester of 2020. We find that conceptions unequivocally decline when social isolation increases. The effect is stronger for women who are between 21 and 25 years old and more educated, as well as for richer, larger, and more urban municipalities. COVID-19 is likely to change fertility across countries depending on the behavior of the population and on the lock-down measures implemented to fight the pandemic.

Did COVID-19 enlarge spatial disparities in population dynamics? A comparative, multivariate approach for Italy

A short-term issue that has been occasionally investigated in the current literature is if (and, eventually, how) population dynamics (directly or indirectly) driven by COVID-19 pandemic have contributed to enlarge regional divides in specific demographic processes and dimensions. To verify this assumption, our study run an exploratory multivariate analysis of ten indicators representative of different demographic phenomena (fertility, mortality, nuptiality, internal and international migration) and the related population outcomes (natural balance, migration balance, total growth). We developed a descriptive analysis of the statistical distribution of the ten demographic indicators using eight metrics that assess formation (and consolidation) of spatial divides, controlling for shifts over time in both central tendency, dispersion, and distributional shape regimes. All indicators were made available over 20 years (2002-2021) at a relatively detailed spatial scale (107 NUTS-3 provinces) in Italy. COVID-19 pandemic exerted an impact on Italian population because of intrinsic (e.g. a particularly older population age structure compared with other advanced economies) and extrinsic (e.g. the early start of the pandemic spread compared with the neighboring European countries) factors. For such reasons, Italy may represent a sort of 'worst' demographic scenario for other countries affected by COVID-19 and the results of this empirical study can be informative when delineating policy measures (with both economic and social impact) able to mitigate the effect of pandemics on demographic balance and improve the adaptation capacity of local societies to future pandemic's crises.