[Economic crisis and infant mortality in Latin America since the 1980's]

In the present study, based on data from nine Latin American countries, we found evidence of an association between the economic crisis and infant mortality during the last decades. The paper initially review previous studies on this issue and shows the need for a greater research focus on shorter time intervals. We then describe the deterioration and unequal conditions among the countries based on trends in selected social and economic indicators and the evolution of infant mortality rates. According to our statistical analysis, infant mortality bore an inverse association to short-term economic variations. We also found a significant and negative correlation between decreasing infant mortality rates and increasing poverty. The economic crisis displayed effects of varying intensity among the countries we analyzed, with social inequality appearing as the most probable explanatory variable.