Life-Sustaining Equipment: A Demographic Geospace Analysis in National Territory

Equitable supply of life-sustaining equipment (LSE) is an important guide for assessing public health service provision. However, the inadequate geospatial distribution of this equipment can pose a difficulty in accessing it. In this attempt, the objective of this study was to analyze the geospatial distribution of life maintenance equipment in the Brazilian national territory using a database from the Department of Information Technology of SUS, analyzing its availability, access at the municipal level as well as its correlation to regional income per capita. This cross-sectional, descriptive study with a quantitative approach used spatial analysis tools to determine the existence of Global Spatial Autocorrelation (Moran's I) and Local Spatial Autocorrelation Index. Thus, it was observed that the highest rate of equipment is concentrated in the Southeast region with 52.9%, followed by the Northeast region 18.2%, South region 15.5%, Midwest region 8.5% and the North region with 4.9%, which can be justified by the regional GDP. It is possible to observe a directly proportional relation between the GDP value of the states and their amount of equipment. We conclude that the distribution of LSE was greater in the Southeast, Northeast and South regions, thus showing an imbalance in the North and Northeast regions. There was also a need to implement public policy incentives to promote improvements, reducing the difficulty for the population to have access to this equipment.