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The life expectancy of both men and women who were born in Brazil in 2003 stands at 71.3 years, 0.8% more than in 2000. But, according to a study released today by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), this improvement could have been two or three years greater were it not for the effect of the premature deaths of young people due to violence.
The Complete Mortality Table for the Brazilian population, with estimates for those born in 2003, shows that violent death began to play a significant role in the middle of the 1980's.
In the United Nations classification, Brazil is 86th among 192 countries in average longevity. Japan is in first place, with an average life-span of more than 81 years.
The study also reports that the child mortality rate dropped 8.6%, compared with the year 2000, with an estimated annual mortality rate of nearly 28 child under a year old among every thousand live births.
The drop in child mortality is attributed to various public health policies adopted in the country.
"First of all, beginning at the end of the 1940's, with the advent of antibiotics to combat infectious diseases. More recently, various steps were taken to reduce child mortality in Brazil: mass vaccination campaigns, prenatal care, breast-feeding, and community health agents, among others," says the IBGE note.
The Mortality Table has been used by the Ministry of Social Security since 1999 to determine the so-called retirement factor in its calculations of the pensions of people covered by the General Rules of the Social Security System.
Agência Brasil
Translator: David Silberstein
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