The child mortality rate is considered a synthesis indicator of life quality and of the development level of a population. This article analyses the evolution of these rates in the Rio de Janeiro City, in the period between 1979 and 2004, and the causes in 2004. It is a descriptive study from the total of child death and births occurred, using the information system produced by the Health Department. For the evaluation, according basic death cause, it was used the Disease International Classification. The rates of child mortality per thousand born live decreased from 37.4 in 1979 to 15.1 in 2004, being the post neonatal the main responsible for this decline. In 2004, the main causes of neonatal deaths were the perinatal affections and the congenital malformation; among deaths post neonatal was detached the infectious and parasitic diseases, the undefined causes and the respiratory diseases. Although it was observed a drop in the child mortality rate, this hasn't a mayor reduction, because a little decline of the precocious neonatal component. It was observed that the assistance to the child health, in the city of Rio de Janeiro, yet let to desire in what is about the integrality of the assistance since the prenatal period.
Mortality Rate; Infant Mortality; Neonatal Mortality; Postneonatal Mortality; Epidemiology, Descriptive
