Assessment of social and health indicators in municipalities of Minas Gerais according to the rural-urban typology

ABSTRACT This article aims to evaluate social and health indicators of municipalities according to the rural-urban typology. This is an ecological study that used official publicly accessible data from the 853 municipalities in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Descriptive and bivariate analysis were carried out using Poisson Regression and Kruskal-Wallis Test. 547 (64.12%) are rural municipalities. The highest average of the Municipal Human Development Index (MHDI) was observed among urban municipalities. The highest average coverage of the Family Health Strategy (FHS) was found among rural municipalities. In these municipalities, the best results were shown for the indicators of infant mortality, premature mortality and mortality from preventable causes, vaccine homogeneity and prevalence of malnutrition. The findings of this study show that greater FHS coverage is associated with the occurrence of better general living and health conditions in the populations served in rural municipalities. It is recommended that health managers encourage the consolidation of the FHS in communities with unfavorable socioeconomic and cultural contexts, such as remote rural locations and urban agglomerations, and the establishment of intersectoral actions with a positive impact on health.