Teenage pregnancy and access to Information and Communications Technologies in the Amazon

Objectives: To analyze the association between access to information, measured by the possession of a computer with Internet connection in households, and teenage pregnancy, taking as reference the municipalities of the Brazilian Legal Amazon compared to the rest of Brazil. Methods: Ecological study based on data collected from the Demographic Census of persons and households, carried out in Brazil in 2010, by the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatistica (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics). Results: For the municipalities of the Brazilian Legal Amazon with the lowest percentages of households with computer with Internet access (< 4.49%), the probability of presenting the highest percentages of teenage pregnancy (>= 9.39%) is 0.723, while for the others municipalities of Brazil, this probability is 0.23. The phenomenon of teenage pregnancy presented association with the space of reference (Brazil, Amazon) and with the ownership of computer with Internet access in the households. Conclusions: The municipalities of the Brazilian Legal Amazon present high rates of teenage pregnancy compared to the others municipalities of Brazil. Associated to the poor infrastructure of Internet access, the occurrence of this phenomenon reveals the unequal conditions that managers and health professionals can find to execute projects that rely on Information and Communications Technologies.