Rio de Janeiro

Health Care

The city has made major improvements in health, dramatically reducing high infant mortality rates in a short number of years, from 75.3 to 36 deaths per 1,000 births between 1980 and 1987. The overall life expectancy has also increased, from 45 to 63 years between 1940 and 1980. Mortality rates have decreased by improving sanitary conditions throughout the city. Yet, some of those gains have been offset by increases in violence and accidents. There are more than 300 hospitals with 25,872 beds in metropolitan Rio.