image: Adjusted hazard ratios of the incidence rate of death per each altitude stratum according to three mixed-effects multivariate Cox proportional hazards models, considering the reference an altitude of the health care facility where neonates were attended of <80m. Estimated hazard ratios from mixed-effects multivariate Cox proportional models. All models (1, 2 and 3) estimated fixed effects for next individual variables: gestational age, birth weight, Apgar scale at five minutes, and comorbidities; and random effects for contextual variables in this way: (i) administrative planning areas, type of health care facility, and level of care in Model 1, (ii) administrative planning areas, and level of care in Model 2; and (iii) level of care in Model 3. view more
Credit: Dueñas-Espín et al, 2021, PLOS ONE (CC-BY 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Newborns at higher altitudes have up to 37 percent higher mortality rates, perhaps because of lower availability of blood oxygen, vitamins and minerals.
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Article Title: Is a higher altitude associated with shorter survival among at-risk neonates?
Funding: This work was part of the "Score Bebé" project. IDE, LAA, RJ, MFR, BT were supported by Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador (Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador, https://www.puce.edu.ec/) grant number QINV0025-IINV533010100. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Article URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0253413
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PLOS ONE