Introduction:

Infant mortality is affected by deleterious, socioeconomic and environmental living conditions, which are aggravated in exceptional situations.

Objective:

To describe infant mortality in the Havana municipality of La Lisa during the three-year period 1991-1993, according to the differential stratification of living conditions in the territory.

Methods:

An observational, descriptive and transversal study (of exploratory ecological type) was carried out in the capital municipality of La Lisa, in the triennium 1991-1993, where the units of analysis were the health areas stratified by automatic classification. The fundamental variables were living conditions, according to different dimensions and their variables, and the central infant mortality rates in the period, considering its components and the basic cause of death.

Results:

The municipality was stratified according to its living conditions in favorable and unfavorable settlements. Infant mortality was higher in the settlement with unfavorable living conditions (10.3 deaths per 1000 live births), where obstetric trauma, idiopathic death and sepsis predominated as causes of death.

Conclusions:

Stratification according to living conditions in the municipality of La Lisa was achieved. The population settlement with unfavorable living conditions showed a substantial differential infant mortality risk, probably associated with hygienic-sanitary and socioeconomic factors, according to the causes of death recorded.

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