Objective: To analyze the temporal trend of hospital admissions due to Ambulatory Care-Sensitive Conditions (ACSC) in Brazil per sex, region, cause and age group, from 2010 to 2019.
Methods: This is an ecological study based on the temporal trend of ACSC rates. Standardized rates were analyzed in a simple linear regression and a generalized linear model (GLM) Gamma. The percentage change was also checked over three periods: 2010-2014, 2015-2019 and 2010-2019.
Results: There was a reduction in hospital admission rates between 2010 and 2019 for Brazil: 124.3/10,000 inhab. to 88.2/10,000 inhab. among women (-29.0%) and 119.0/10,000 inhab. to 88.2/10,000 inhab. (-25.9%) among men in all regions. The decrease was more prominent between 2010-2014 (-17.7%) and (-17.8%) than between 2015-2019 (-.2%) and (-5.9%) for females and males, respectively. The milder decline in the period from 2015 to 2019 was more noticeable among age groups 0-4y and 5-19y in all regions. As for the causes, most ICD-10 diseases had a downward trend, the more expressive ones being gastroenteritis (-60%); however, an increase was seen in cerebrovascular diseases among women (11.2%) and men (17.1%), and angina (15% %) and skin infections (56.1%) among men.
Conclusion: There was a significant drop in ACSC rates in the period analyzed, especially for age groups 0-4y and 5-19y. The rates had a milder drop from 2015 to 2019, a period of austerity and economic crisis.