title: Impact of primary health care on mortality from heart and cerebrovascular diseases in Brazil: a nationwide analysis of longitudinal data.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To evaluate the impact of Brazil's recently implemented Family Health Program (FHP), the largest primary health care programme in the world, on heart and cerebrovascular disease mortality across Brazil from 2000 to 2009.
  
  
  METHODS
  Ecological longitudinal design, evaluating the impact of FHP using negative binomial regression models for panel data with fixed effects specifications.
  
  
  METHODS
  Nationwide analysis of data from Brazilian municipalities covering the period from 2000 to 2009.
  
  
  METHODS
  1622 Brazilian municipalities with vital statistics of adequate quality.
  
  
  METHODS
  The annual FHP coverage and the average FHP coverage in previous years were used as main independent variables and classified as none (0%), incipient (<30%), intermediate (30-69%), or consolidated (≥ 70%). Age standardised mortality rates from causes in the group of cerebrovascular (ICD-10 codes I60-69), ischaemic (ICD-10 I20-25), and other forms of heart diseases (ICD-10 I30-52), which were included in the national list of ambulatory care-sensitive conditions, were calculated for each municipality for each year. They accounted for 40% of all deaths from these groups during the study period.
  
  
  RESULTS
  FHP coverage was negatively associated with mortality rates from cerebrovascular and heart diseases (ambulatory care-sensitive conditions) in both unadjusted and adjusted models for demographic, social, and economic confounders. The FHP had no effect on the mortality rate for accidents, used as a control. The rate ratio for the effect of consolidated annual FHP coverage on cerebrovascular disease mortality and on heart disease mortality was 0.82 (95% confidence interval 0.79 to 0.86) and 0.79 (0.75 to 0.80) respectively, reaching the value of 0.69 (0.66 to 0.73) and 0.64 (0.59 to 0.68) when the coverage was consolidated during all the previous eight years. Moreover, FHP coverage increased the number of health education activities, domiciliary visits, and medical consultations and reduced hospitalisation rates for cerebrovascular and heart disease. Several complementary analyses showed quantitatively similar results.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Comprehensive and community based primary health care programmes, such as the FHP in Brazil, acting through cardiovascular disease prevention, care, and follow-up can contribute to decreased cardiovascular disease morbidity and mortality in a developing country such as Brazil.
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Saúde Coletiva, Federal University of Bahia, Rua Basílio da Gama, s/n, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil davide.rasella@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Davide
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Rasella
authors.affiliation: Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, USA.
authors.forename: Michael O
authors.initials: MO
authors.lastname: Harhay
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Saúde Coletiva, Federal University of Bahia, Rua Basílio da Gama, s/n, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil.
authors.forename: Marina L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Pamponet
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Saúde Coletiva, Federal University of Bahia, Rua Basílio da Gama, s/n, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação em Saúde, INCT-CITECS, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil.
authors.forename: Rosana
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Aquino
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Saúde Coletiva, Federal University of Bahia, Rua Basílio da Gama, s/n, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação em Saúde, INCT-CITECS, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil.
authors.forename: Mauricio L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Barreto
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001938:Brazil / Q000453:epidemiology; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000401:mortality*; D002561:Cerebrovascular Disorders / Q000401:mortality*; D005192:Family Health; D006801:Humans; D038801:International Classification of Diseases; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008875:Middle Aged; D011320:Primary Health Care; D055815:Young Adult