Temporal trends in prevalence and infant mortality of birth defects in Brazil, from 2001 to 2018

Congenital anomalies (CA) are a rel-evant problem for global public health, affect-ing about 3% to 6% of newborns worldwide. In Brazil, these are the second main cause of infant mortality. Thus, extensive studies are needed to demonstrate the impact of these anomalies on births and deaths. The present study describes the temporal trends of prevalence and infant mortality due to CA among live births in Brazil and regions, from 2001 to 2018, using the relat-ed data between the Live Birth Information Sys-tem (SINASC, acronym in Portuguese) and the Mortality Information System (SIM, acronym in Portuguese). The prevalence and infant mortality due to CA has increased in Brazil and in most re-gions, especially in the Northeast and North. CAs in the musculoskeletal system were the most fre-quent at birth (29.8/10,000 live births), followed by those in the circulatory system (12.7/10,000 live births), which represented the primary cause of death in this group. The applied linkage tech-nique made it possible to correct the national prevalence of CA by 17.9% during the analyzed period, after retrieving the anomalies reported in SIM, thereby proving to be a good tool to improve the quality of information on anomalies in Brazil.