The geographical distribution of mortality by cause in Chile

Standardised mortality ratios for 19 causes of death are computed for the provinces of Chile. All have a particular geographical distribution in common: they are either positively or negatively associated with the availability of health services. This is likely to be the result of the propinquity of health services to populations of higher socio-economic status and also the differences in recording accuracy between urbanised provinces and provinces where access to health services is especially difficult. By holding the effects of health service variability constant, other geographical patterns in mortality rates emerge. For lung cancer, two northern provinces have death rates ten times those of central Chile.