Study of the distribution of multiple births in Brazil

Abstract

Researchers from Painel USP de Gêmeos have been investigating the rates of multiple births: (i) in the city of São Paulo, (ii) in Brazil, comparing all five regions (Otta et al., 2016; Otta et al., 2019; Varella et al., 2018) in the years 2003 and 2014 and (iii) in Uruguay (Gomez et al., 2019) between 1999 and 2015. The data was extracted from the Information System on Live Births of São Paulo (SINASC) from the Ministry of Health of Brazil and from the website of the Ministry of Public Health of Uruguay, respectively. Upon analyzing the data based on region, we found the highest multiple birth rates in the Southeast (10,340) and in the South (10,060) and the lowest rates in the North (7,320), with intermediate values in the Middle-West (9,050) and Northeast (8,680). In Uruguay, the multiple birth rate was observed in women 45 years or older. Consistent with prior historical and transcultural research, the results sustain the existence of a physiological mechanism dependent on age that causes a high increase in multiple births in mothers of higher age. This scientific initiation project attaches itself to the Sub-Project P1 "Painel USP de Gêmeos" of the FAPESP Thematic "Painel USP de gêmeos: pesquisas sobre comportamento, saúde e bem-estar de gêmeos" (Process:22/02107-6). The research was planned to update the collection of data in Brazil during the last decade. The data will be extracted by the scientific initiation scholarship student from the SINASC database, following the same methodology used in previous studies http://tabnet.datasus.gov.br/cgi/tabcgi.exe?sinasc/cnv/nvuf.def. We also plan on exploring databases from other countries for comparison purposes, based on research done by Smits and Monden (2011), which also requires updates. We have requested access to international databases, which was authorized by The Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) Program USA. https://dhsprogram.com/Data/terms-of-use.cfm. The data analysis will be done in collaboration with Professor Claudia Monteiro Peixoto (IME-USP).