Regional differences in life expectancy at birth in Mexican municipalities, 1990-2000

The purpose of this study is to provide life expectancy estimates at birth for states and aggregates of municipalities by population size within regions of Mexico. A regression-based technique is used to estimate life expectancy for these populations from 1990 to 2000. Our findings suggest that the greatest increase in life expectancy among population size groups occurred in “extended-rural” municipalities (those with a population of 2,500 to 14,999) with an average of 7 years. The capital region showed the highest increase in life expectancy among all the regions, with considerable increases in extended-rural municipalities. Our estimates are consistent with expectations with respect to urban advantages in life expectancy, which probably reflect the concentration of public health services, as well as primary, secondary and tertiary medical care. This analysis may be useful in evaluating the public health policies of the Mexican authorities that have focused on diminishing health inequalities between well and poorly served populations. In general, the life expectancies prepared by the regression method are quite close to those prepared from age-specific mortality rates, and our results show the utility of this shortcut method compared with life expectancies estimated from complete sets of age-specific mortality rates.