Hepatite A: soroprevalência e fatores associados em escolares de S？o Luís (MA), Brasil

objectives: to estimate the prevalence of antibodies to hepatitis a virus (antivha-igg) in children aged 7-14 years from public and private schools, and to identify demographic, socioeconomic and sanitation factors associated with the prevalence of antivha-igg. methods: seroepidemiological study for the detection of igg antivha. it was conducted from april 2002 to april 2004 with 462 elementary school students from s？o luis, ranging from 7 to 14-years of age. thirty schools randomly selected took part in the study, with a probability proportional to the number of students enrolled; 23 schools were public and 7 were private. data was obtained through a structured questionnaire. in order to identify the variables independently associated with igg antivha, the poisson multiple regression analysis was performed, estimating the adjusted prs and their 95% confidence intervals. the variables associated with the prevalence of hepatitis a with p < 0 were the only ones that remained in the final model. the level of significance of 0.05 (α = 0.05) was adopted. results: the prevalence of antivha-igg was 64%, 71.5% in public and 36.5% in private schools. after multivariate analysis, age 11 to 14 years, more than one person per bedroom, and less than two bathrooms per household were associated with a higher prevalence of antivha-igg. higher parental education was associated with lower prevalence of antivha-igg. conclusions: hepatitis a is endemic among schoolchildren in s？o luís. the prevalence rate was similar to those found in other regions of the country with similar socio-economic and health conditions. factors historically associated with a higher prevalence of hepatitis a were also identified in this population.