Authors
Letícia Araujo Villarinho, Julia Raffin Moura, Mchilanny Bussinguer de Menezes, Emilie Freire Batista, Silvana Alves Pereira, Aline Martins de Toledo
Published in
Cadernos de saude publica. Volume 42. Pages e00220625. Epub Oct 05, 2026.
Abstract
Neonatal respiratory distress syndrome shows high clinical severity and economic burden for the Brazilian Unified National Health System. This study estimated the direct costs of hospitalizations from 2018 to 2021 and described their distribution by diagnosis, region, and period. A cost-of-disease study with a top-down approach and authorizations for hospitalization of newborns aged from 0 to 27 days was carried out. Values were updated to December 2025 and standardized per 1,000 live births. The period included 1,449,694 neonatal hospitalizations, of which 227,130 (15.7%) were due to respiratory distress (about half of which were classified as "unspecified" by the International Classification of Diseases, 10th revision). Total spending neared BRL 1.4 billion, 69.6% of which referred to care in neonatal intensive care units. The cost per 1,000 live births ranged from BRL 111,625 in the Brazilian North to BRL 769,847 in the South. Respiratory distress syndrome had the highest median cost per hospitalization (BRL 8,060). Admissions decreased due to respiratory distress syndrome but increased due to transient tachypnea, other discomforts, and unspecified diagnoses. Cost medians decreased in the period. A greater use of neonatal intensive care beds and an increase in proportional mortality in "unspecified" cases occurred from 2020 to 2021. Regions show high and heterogeneous economic burden. Estimates by diagnosis and region can guide neonatal intensive care capacity planning and equity policies in perinatal care.
PMID:
42848675
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 09 Oct 2026.
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