Sociodemographic and regional differences in neonatal and infant mortality in Switzerland in 2011–2018: the Swiss National Cohort

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BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Despite a well-funded healthcare system with universal insurance coverage, Switzerland has one of the highest neonatal and infant mortality rates among high-income countries. Identifying avoidable risk factors targeted by evidence-based policies is a public health priority. We describe neonatal and infant mortality in Switzerland from 2011 to 2018 and explore associations with neonatal- and pregnancy-related variables, parental sociodemographic information, regional factors and socioeconomic position (SEP) using data from a long-term nationwide cohort study. METHODS: We included 680,077 live births, representing 99.3% of all infants born in Switzerland between January 2011 and December 2018. We deterministically linked the national live birth register with the mortality register and with census and survey data to create a longitudinal dataset of neonatal- and pregnancy-related variables; parental sociodemographic information, such as civil status, age, religion, education, nationality; regional factors, such as urbanity, language region; and the Swiss neighbourhood index of socioeconomic position (Swiss-SEP index). Information on maternal education was available for a random subset of 242,949 infants. We investigated associations with neonatal and infant mortality by fitting multivariable Poisson regression models with robust standard errors. Several sensitivity analyses assessed the robustness of our findings. RESULTS: Overall, neonatal mortality rates between 2011 and 2018 were 3.0 per 1000 live births, with regional variations: 3.2 in German-speaking, 2.4 in French-speaking and 2.1 in Italian-speaking Switzerland. For infant mortality, the rates were 3.7 per 1000 live births overall, and 3.9 in the German-speaking, 3.3 in the French-speaking and 2.9 in the Italian-speaking region. After adjusting for sex, maternal age, multiple birth and birth rank, neonatal mortality remained significantly associated with language region (adjusted rate ratio [aRR] 0.72, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.64-0.80 for the French-speaking region and aRR 0.66, 95% CI: 0.51-0.87 for the Italian-speaking region vs German-speaking region), with marital status (aRR 1.55, 95% CI: 1.40-1.71 for unmarried vs married), nationality (aRR 1.40, 95% CI: 1.21-1.62 for non-European Economic Area vs Swiss) and the Swiss-SEP index (aRR 1.17, 95% CI: 1.00-1.36 for lowest vs highest SEP quintile). In the subset, we showed a possible association of neonatal mortality with maternal education (aRR 1.24, 95% CI: 0.95-1.61 for compulsory vs tertiary education). CONCLUSION: We provide detailed evidence about the social patterning of neonatal and infant mortality in Switzerland and reveal important regional differences with about 30% lower risks in French- and Italian-speaking compared with German-speaking regions. Underlying causes for such regional differences, such as cultural, lifestyle or healthcare-related factors, warrant further exploration to inform and provide an evidence base for public health policies.

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