Determinantes socioeconômicos e ambientais do declínio das hospitalizações por diarréias em lactentes no Rio Grande do Norte - 1992 a 2001

There was a significant decline in hospitalizations for acute diarrhea in children younger than 1 year of age in Brazil between 1992 to 2001. The less economically developed state of Rio Grande do Norte is a case example of the national trend. In this work, we show a significant association between improvements in socioeconomic variables as well as increased access to sanitation and the decreased rate of hospitalization. Additionally, we observed a positive, seasonal correlation between rainfall and hospitalizations. Most notably, however, we show that improvements in income and inflation were positively correlated with a decline in hospitalizations. Improvements in public health infrastructure, socioeconomic variables like education and literacy, and increased investment in health services were important in reducing severe early childhood diarrheas. However, the data suggests that increased buying power and reductions in poverty played an equally crucial role in reducing hospitalizations for acute diarrhea in infants in Brazil. The work includes elements of the demography of the period for the age groups involved, children under one year, women in fertile age and fertility rate

Transição demográfica e a questão educacional: uma abordagem para o ensino médio do Rio Grande do Norte

Due to demographic transition process, the educational public sector politics formers encounter a highly specific demographic situation because, nowadays, despite the demographic transition, population is still growing because of the demographic inertia; however, due to steady decline in fertility, young population tends to decrease in next years. In this way, aiming to make high school widely accessible in the country, the issue of education quality is highlighted as well the importance of the physical structure of schools and their teaching equipments to confirm a favorable or not environment for developing educational processes. In this way, this work aims to relate the enrollment of students as school types with the demand of young people who will be able to attend high school on the Rio Grande do Norte state by the year of 2020, emphasizing teaching unities structural aspects, from a school profiling to the design of three prospective alternatives. So, from INEP's Scholar Census data and IBGE population's projections, this work is composed by four stages: i) literature review about research related subjects; ii) database design and build; iii) school profiling; and, iv) prospective alternatives creation. As results, three alternatives relate potential demand and enrollment using the built profiles and they are: i) “Alternative A” attends PEE's requirements related to demands but do not provide improvements in the school structural aspects; ii) “Alternative B” points into an increase of enrollment offering to the detriment of school's structural conditions which are offered to these students; iii) “Alternative C” propitiates a quantitative enrollment increasing combined with improvements on school's physical structure. These alternatives help to support decision making related to goals and realization of universal access with physical conditions which are necessary to a favorable environment to educational activity development.