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This article examines the relationship between the financial crisis of 2008 and the health of Italians using aggregate and individual health indicators in correlation with the socioeconomic changes which have occurred in the Italian population. First, the study contextualises the changes referring to some important health indicators (life expectancy, death and suicide rates). Then, the main hypothesis on the relation between worsened individual health conditions and socioeconomic deterioration is tested. For this purpose, individual data from 2005 to 2013 stemming from Health Condition and Use of Health Services surveys (Italian National Institute of Statistics) are analysed. The results show that the social categories most severely affected by the crisis, in both employment and economic terms, were basically the same as those that experienced a worsening of their physical and psychological health conditions. These categories of people have a low level of educational attainment, live in southern and insular regions and are most often men.

The empirical evidence shows discordant results regarding the role of local contexts on individual health. This article considers the role of the municipal socio-economic contexts on self-rated health in Italy, taking into account some individual variables. Multilevel model software (MlwiN) is used to fit multilevel linear regression models of perceived health. Individual data are from the Italian surveys on “Aspects of Daily Life” 2010, 2011 and 2012, collected by the Italian National Institute of Statistics (Istat). In addition, municipality-level social, demographic and economic characteristics are from the 2011 Census and the database “Atlas of Italian Municipalities” (Istat). The main findings of this study confirm that, controlling for age and gender at the individual level, poor health is influenced by socio-economic positions: lower education, not working or looking for employment and disadvantaged family social class predict higher perceived health. The individual level explains the 70.1% heterogeneity in self-assessed health, the family level 25.6% and the municipality level only 4.3%. The additional influence of the socio-economic context is, conversely, of little substantive importance. Finally, by showing that variability in health relates mainly to individual characteristics, this study suggests that intervention to mitigate social inequalities in health should focus on structural factors, such as education and the labour market.

This study investigates the relationship between the recent economic crisis and the health of Italians, or more accurately describes the trends of some health indicators of the Italian population in association with socio-economic changes that have characterized Italy in recent years. In the first part of the article we examine the trends of some important indicators socio-economic aggregates and health (life expectancy and some mortality rates). In the second part we present some analysis on individual data (Istat – Survey on health status and use of health services). Our aim is to show the evolution of health conditions between 2005 and 2013 taking in account sociodemographic characteristics of different social categories. The results show that groups most affected by the crisis (with economic problems and unemployment) are substantially the same who show a worsening of the physical and psychological health. They are characterized by low level of schooling, they live in the southern and island Italian regions, and are more frequently male.

There is widespread concern that episodes of unemployment and unstable working conditions adversely affect health. We add to the debate by focusing on the relationship between work trajectory and the self-reported health of Italian men and women during the present economic downturn. Relying on Italian data in the EU-SILC project (from 2007 to 2010), our sample includes all individuals aged 30 to 60 in 2010, and uses multivariate binomial regression models for preliminary analyses and the Structural Equations modelling (SEM) to observe the cumulative effects of health status according to different job trajectories. Our main findings show similar pictures for men and women. Individuals who are unemployed, ejected or in precarious occupational positions have a higher risk of worsening their health status during these years.

ObjectiveLow individual socioeconomic status (SES) is known to be associated with a higher risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), but the extent to which the local context in which people live may influence T2DM rates remains unclear. This study examines whether living in a low property value neighbourhood is associated with higher rates of T2DM independently of individual SES.Research design and methodsUsing cross-sectional data from the Maastricht Study (2010-2013) and geographical data from Statistics Netherlands, multilevel logistic regression was used to assess the association between neighbourhood property value and T2DM. Individual SES was based on education, occupation and income. Of the 2,056 participants (aged 40-75 years), 494 (24%) were diagnosed with T2DM.ResultsIndividual SES was strongly associated with T2DM, but a significant proportion of the variance in T2DM was found at the neighbourhood level (VPC = 9.2%; 95% CI = 5.0%-16%). Participants living in the poorest neighbourhoods had a 2.38 times higher odds ratio of T2DM compared to those living in the richest areas (95% CI = 1.58-3.58), independently of individual SES.ConclusionsNeighbourhood property value showed a significant association with T2DM, suggesting the usefulness of area-based programmes aimed at improving neighbourhood characteristics in order to tackle inequalities in T2DM.

Fil: Sarti, Simone. Universidad de Milán, Departamento de Ciencias Sociales y Políticas; Italia Fil: Rodríguez Espínola, Solange Sylvia. Pontificia Universidad Católica Argentina. Observatorio de la Deuda Social Argentina; Argentina Abstract: In the literature there is a lack of investigation on health inequalities in South America and their differences with respect to those in the developed countries. Since Italy has recorded similar economic trends in recent years and has some similarities with Argentina, we decided to use the Mediterranean country for comparative purposes. Our hypothesis was that, beyond structural differences, health inequalities present similar patterns in these two countries characterized by a capitalist economy. Social groups in advantaged educational and occupational positions exhibit better health than disadvantaged groups. We present some descriptive statistics on the overall situation in the two countries, and we then analyse data stemming from two surveys that collected individual information on social conditions and health statuses (OASD from 2010 to 2015, and “Multiscopo – Health condition and use of health services”, ISTAT 2013). The findings show that Argentina and Italy have different levels of wellbeing, mortality rates, and health services. But relative disparities in health seem very similar, confirming the hypothesis of Marmot (2017) about the general form of health inequalities. Manual and precarious workers (in particular unemployed persons) present systematically worse perceived health with respect to higher social classes.

The global financial crisis that began in 2008 had an overall effect on the health behaviours of Italian households. Aggregate private health expenditures have decreased while the citizens have increasingly been asked to share health costs. The reduction of households' health expenditure could have serious consequences for health, especially if it concerns the most vulnerable people. The aim of this paper is to analyse the relation between poverty and household health expenditure, considering regional and social group variations. The data used stem from the "Family Expenditure Survey" collected by the Italian Statistical Institute (ISTAT) from 1997 to 2013. Results of multivariate analysis controlling for potential socio-demographic confounders show that the propensity to spend for poor families is decreased in the last years compared to not poor households. Meanwhile, among the households who spend, the average expenditure in euro seems to have been more stable over time. This is an alarming signal for the health of the most vulnerable households. These conditions could result in a gradual deterioration of health in poor families, which is likely to increase the burden on health systems in future. Hence, at this moment public intervention does not seem able to alleviate this situation.

Available online: 25 August 2016 Most of the studies on the determinants of individual gambling behaviour rely on cognitive theories. In our study, we argue that, besides cognitive factors, several social factors might play an important role as well. We analyse data from an ad hoc webmail survey conducted on about 2000 undergraduate students enrolled in a large public university in the Northern Italy in the academic year 2012-13. Using a variety of statistical techniques (standard regression models, boosted regression trees and structural equations models), we show that social variables affect both participation in gambling in the past year and latent gambling propensity. In particular, controlling for several proxies for individual cognitive ability and understanding of probability, gambling propensity is positively affected by the degree of gambling in the social surrounding (parents, peers, neighbourhood) and the acceptability of gambling activities to the individual. Moreover, in our sample of college students the role of social factors appears to be larger than that of cognitive factors, and this is consistent across different types of models and specifications. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.