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In late 2015, the Brazilian Ministry of Health and the Pan American Health Organization classified the increase in congenital malformations associated with the Zika virus (ZIKV) as a public health emergency. The risk of ZIKV-related congenital syndrome poses a threat to reproductive outcomes that could result in declining numbers of live births and potentially fertility. Using monthly microdata on live births from the Brazilian Information System on Live Births (SINASC), this study examines live births and fertility trends amid the ZIKV epidemic in Brazil. Findings suggest a decline in live births that is stratified across educational and geographic lines, beginning approximately nine months after the link between ZIKV and microcephaly was publicly announced. Although declines in total fertility rates were small, fertility trends estimated by age and maternal education suggest important differences in how Zika might have impacted Brazil’s fertility structure. Further findings confirm the significant declines in live births in mid-2016 even when characteristics of the municipality are controlled for; these results highlight important nuances in the timing and magnitude of the decline. Combined, our findings illustrate the value of understanding how the risk of a health threat directed at fetuses has led to declines in live births and fertility.

Apesar de ainda pouco estudada no Brasil, a influência da religião na sexualidade tem sido investigada pela literatura internacional por mais de meio século. Na literatura brasileira, a religião enquanto variável de interesse demográfico, com impacto no comportamento sexual, vem ganhando importância à medida que se fazem presentes, na sociedade, as mudanças no panorama religioso e nas normas e valores associados à sexualidade. Diante do crescente interesse, por parte dos demógrafos, na variável religião, tornam-se necessários mais subsídios teóricos com a finalidade de dar suporte às futuras pesquisas e estudos brasileiros. O presente trabalho busca, então, mapear as literaturas nacional e internacional acerca da associação entre religião, religiosidade e iniciação sexual de adolescentes e jovens e revelar as muitas formas utilizadas ao longo dos anos para classificar religião e religiosidade. Esta análise também procura ressaltar os cuidados metodológicos que devem ser tomados em estudos de sexualidade adolescente e de religião em geral. Para cumprir com esses dois objetivos, foi realizada uma revisão bibliográfica sistemática nas bases de dados SciELO, Atla, JSTOR e Banco de Teses e Dissertações do Cedeplar e da UFMG, buscando artigos publicados entre 1950 e abril de 2014, em português e inglês.Palavras-chave: Iniciação sexual. Religião. Religiosidade. Adolescência. Revisão bibliográfica sistemática.

There has been a remarkable decline in the number of Catholics in Brazil over the last few decades, a fact that is attributed to the growth of Pentecostal churches and to an increase in the number of people with no religious affiliation. We analyzed the age, period, and cohort effects associated with religious affiliation in Brazil from 1980 to 2010, applying the Hierarchical Age-Period-Cohort and Cross-Classified Random Effects Model. We observed that age effects were significant but low for Catholics and Pentecostals, and were substantial for those with no religious affiliation, with a negative relationship. For these first two religious affiliations, period effects were of greater magnitude with clear trends: negative for Catholics and positive for Pentecostals. Cohort effects were significant for all three affiliations, but magnitudes were lower than the other two effects. We also verified that the likelihood of being a Pentecostal decreased with formal education, and the opposite occurred for persons with no religious affiliation. These effects, however, were smaller for younger cohorts, possibly due to the reduced social selectivity of recent students pursuing higher education and the increase in overall levels of education.

Background In 2015–2017, the Americas experienced a highly consequential epidemics for pregnancy and childbearing. Mainly transmitted by the mosquito Aedes aegypti, but also through sexual intercourse, the Zika virus poses the risk of congenital Zika syndrome to fetus, which includes microcephaly and other child development complications. When a public health crisis taps directly into reproductive health, typically a feminine realm, responses to the emergency may exacerbate deeply-rooted gender norms. This paper investigates the role of gender in two relational contexts: (a) the government-led response to the pandemic in terms of communication campaigns aimed at preventing Zika infections; and (b) an individual level of response to the emergency, concerning women’s negotiation with their sexual partners with regard to the prevention of Zika as well as pregnancies. Methods We conducted content analysis of 94 unique pieces from public health communication campaigns produced by governmental agencies with the goal of promoting Zika awareness. Print and online materials were collected from May 2016 to August 2017, and included TV ads, Internet Pop-ups, and pamphlets. We also analyzed transcripts from 16 focus groups conducted with reproductive-aged women (18–40) in Belo Horizonte and Recife, two large cities differently affected by the Zika outbreak. Women answered open-ended questions connected to the epidemic, in areas such as personal knowledge and experiences with the Zika virus, experiences of their friends and acquaintances, their primary information sources, their perceptions of public health efforts toward containing the outbreak, as well as women’s contraceptive use. Results Campaign pieces handling pregnancy and microcephaly were largely gendered. Pieces targeted women, placing on their shoulders the responsibility for protecting a potential fetus from the disease. Importantly, campaigns neglected addressing male’s participation on Zika prevention and contraceptive management, while failing to take into account Brazil’s large proportion of unplanned pregnancies. Women were placed in a double bind by being expected to prevent both pregnancy and Zika, in a context where gendered power imbalances often translate in women having little power/means for condom negotiation/avoiding unprotected sexual intercourse. Conclusion Government and individual responses to the epidemics reinforced gender roles, situating pregnant women as responsible for averting mosquito bites and microcephaly. Further, prevention campaigns largely excluded men. Since low-socioeconomic status women possessed fewer resources to preclude infection, we also found that beyond the gender divide, this subgroup faced more pronounced Zika prevention challenges as they found it harder to negotiate condom use with their sexual partners and often could not access other types of contraceptives resulting in unplanned pregnancies.

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Despite having been broadly advertised by the mass media, many negative consequences of the Zika virus have been less significant than originally predicted. It is likely that after a few months from the epidemic's onset, personal experience with the virus has altered the person's way to deal with the disease. This study explores the relation between exposure to Zika virus and the social representation of the epidemic. More specifically, one analyzes if increased exposure to the risk of Zika infection changes the characteristics of the web of meanings surrounding the epidemic. Between August and November of 2016, 150 interviews were conducted in the municipality of Governador Valadares, Minas Gerais State, Brazil. Based on the Free Words Association Technique, data on evocations related to the Zika virus were modeled by social network analysis, allowing the characterization of the web of meanings by level of exposure to the risk of Zika infection. The analysis performed here suggests that those never infected by any disease transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito have a lesser representation, incorporating information from the media through lay thinking. In contrast to those with low levels of exposure, the social representation of people infected by Zika is associated with meanings related to the most common symptoms, such as pain, rash, and itching. Personal experience seems to shape the social representation of the disease, increasing the focus on its proximate consequences. Public campaigns designed to foster protective behavior should take into consideration the heterogeneity in the representations of this epidemic to improve adherence to preventive behavior.

More than half of the world’s population lives in a country where fertility is below replacement level (MYRSKYLA; KOHLER; BILLARI, 2009). In Brazil, the total fertility rate (TFR) went down from 4.26 children per women in 1980 to 1.91 in 2010. Some internal disparities exist. We use data from the DHS from 1986, 1996 and the PNDS from 2006, the most recent survey available, to decompose and analyze fertility rates using a framework proposed by Bongaarts (2001), which is especially useful to explore and compare factors behind total fertility rates. The framework includes desired family size (DFS), unwanted fertility, sex preference, replacements for child mortality, rising age at childbearing, involuntary infertility and competing preferences. By understanding fertility components across time in Brazil, this paper illuminates how these factors vary by socio-demographic characteristics (race, religion, wealth, education, and place of residence), and how these factors combined have formed TFR throughout the years and in contexts of both high and low fertility. We found that, contrarily to what happened in the past, women in recent periods are having, in aggregate, fewer children than their ideal family sizes. However, unwanted pregnancies still explain why certain social groups have more children than desired. We also find that women with higher levels of education tend to desire more children than women with lower educational levels. Competing preferences is the main explanation for this disparity.