Epidemiology of oral transmission of Chagas disease and socioeconomic conditions in Pará, Brazil

OBJECTIVE: Verify relationships between the prevalence of CD, Human Development Index (HDI), the production and consumption of açaí in Pará, Brazil. METHODS: Cross-sectional study with secondary data on CD prevalence collected on the platform of the Department of Informatics of the Unified Health System (DATASUS), notified in the period from 2007 to 2018. Data on HDI, local production and consumption of açaí, were obtained from the website and the Agricultural Census of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), respectively. Comparisons of the number of cases, HDI and local açaí consumption were performed using Spearman's correlation, while the evolution of annual production was verified by analysis of variance. Correlations with a p-value <0.05 were considered significant. RESULTS: There was no significant correlation between the number of cases of Chagas disease among the municipalities according to the HDI (p = 0.2000). However, there was an increase in the annual production of açaí (X2 = 40.25; p = 0.0001) and a significant correlation between local consumption of açaí and the prevalence of chagas disease (p = 0.003), although without statistical significance in the correlation between açaí production and oral transmission (p = 0.087). CONCLUSION: The prevalence of CD was associated with local consumption of açaí, but not by oral transmission or influenced by the HDI, in a non-causal way. The increase in annual production concerns about the increase in the prevalence of CD in the state of Pará.