Teenage pregnancy and indicators of income, education and Information and Communication Technologies access in Brazil and in the Brazilian Legal Amazon

Abstract

Objectives: To analyse the association between the information access through a computer with Internet connexion in households and the teenage pregnancy, taking as reference the municipalities of Brazilian Legal Amazon compared to the rest of Brazil.

Methods: Ecological study based on data collected from the Demographic Census of peoples and households performed in Brazil, in the year 2010, by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics. The integration of the databases was performed, from which variables were selected for the municipalities. These variables represent the dimensions of fecundity, income, education, ownership of computer with Internet access in the households, and space of reference (Brazil, Amazon). The visualisation of the spatial distribution of teenage pregnancy in Brazilian municipalities is presented in the form of map. According to the classes of ages, the medium percentages of occurrence of the phenomenon in the municipalities of Amazon are compared to the municipalities of Brazil. Interactively, mining algorithms were applied to extract rules of association between the variables of the problem.

Results: For the municipalities of Brazilian Legal Amazon with the lowest percentages of households with computer with Internet access (< 4,49%), the probability of presenting the highest percentages of teenage pregnancy (≥ 9,39%) is equal to 0,723, while for the others municipalities of Brazil, this probability is equal to 0,23. The phenomenon of teenage pregnancy presented association with the space of reference (Brazil, Amazon) and with the ownership of computer with Internet access in the households.

Conclusions: The municipalities of Brazilian Legal Amazon present high occurrence rates of teenage pregnancy compared to the others municipalities of Brazil. Associated to the low- infrastructure of Internet access, the occurrence of this phenomenon reveals the unequal conditions that managers and health professionals can find to execute projects that use Information and Communications Technologies.