O impacto de programas sociais que visam reduzir a mortalidade infantil no Rio Grande do Sul : avaliação do Programa "Viva a Criança".

Abstract

In the present dissertation we analyzed the Viva a criança Program (PVC) on the infant mortality coefficients in the Rio Grande do Sul State. We identified the infant mortality coefficient (IMC) in the participant counties before and after the program implementation; we compared the IMC among participant and non-participant counties before and after the PVC implementation and also we did those same analysis comparing the health coordinators in that state. The research has an academic relevance because took into account the participants and non participants counties, characterizing a quasi-experimental design, which is necessary whenever we intend to do an impact evaluation. Our hypothesis was that: those participant counties had lower IMC than those non-participant after the PVC implementation. We used multivariate regression models, which were non significant and also a matching procedure to have more comparable counties among the two groups (participants and non participants in the program). After we analyzed 4 years of the program (from 2004 to 2008) and the matching procedure was done we observed that the greatest impact of the PVC happened during the years 2005 and 2006, in the sense that those participants had lower levels of IMC than those non-participants.