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Abstract This article contributes to the quality of life literature by investigating gender and age gaps in psycho-physiological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy. Specifically, we investigate whether women experienced higher levels of distress than men, and if such gap can be explained by a greater negative reaction of women in the experience of a negative COVID-19 related event, such as the illness or death of a relative. Moreover, we explore whether age moderated or amplified the effect of a negative event on distress among women and men. To do so we rely on an ad hoc survey carried out between April 2020 and June 2021 in Italy, the first European country to be hit by the pandemic. Our results indicate that subjects who experienced the hospitalization or, more so, the death of a family member during the pandemic were more exposed to psycho-psychological distress compared to subjects who were not directly touched by COVID-19. Moreover, our results show that while women were on average more likely to express feelings of distress than men in absence of evident stressors, this gap disappeared among subjects who experience the death of a relative. Furthermore, our results indicate that experiencing a negative COVID-19 related event led to an increase in distress among all respondents except older men, who appeared to be the most resilient to the manifestation of any sign of distress. These results speak to important age and gender differences in the feelings and externalization of grief in the Italian context.

Population aging is particularly pronounced in Italy. Recently, home-care services emerged as one of the desirable strategy when dealing with such situations of fragility. In this framework, we present the evaluation of a home-care service which was experimentally implemented by Fondazione Sacra Famiglia and Casa di Cura Ambrosiana in the 2017–2018 biennium. The service consisted of a twice-weekly nursing visit intended to monitor patient health conditions and to gather data constantly supervised by a geriatrician. The eligible population consisted of the users of San Carlo Hospital Emergency Department (91 individuals). Twenty of these individuals had access to the experimental home-care service. The results show the smaller probability of mortality for the treatment group compared to the control group, but similar probabilities in admissions to ER and in hospitalizations. These findings suggest that health home-care policies could reduce mortality by lessening the negative effects of relational isolation.

The article aims to analyse gender segregation in the labour market while comparing two national contexts in Europe and Latin America. Specifically, it will consider the growth trends of female employment in the last 25 years (1992–2017), its distribution between activity sectors and occupations, and the gender pay gap. Feminization models and gender inequalities are framed within labour market segmentation theories, which are in partial contrast to human capital theories and neoclassical economics. The initial hypothesis is that the gender distribution of occupations measured by a segregation index is similar in Italy and Chile, despite significant differences in the socio-economic and institutional contexts. Through this intercontinental comparison, the article intends to shed light on women’s labour market conditions and segregation patterns, which are multidimensional and generalizable (transcontinental) phenomena, connected to the unequal division of labour in the new post-industrial order.

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.

En la literatura hay una falta de investigación acerca de las desigualdades en salud en Sudamérica y sus diferencias con respecto a las de los países desarrollados. Como en Italia se han registrado tendencias similares en los últimos años y muestra similaridades con la Argentina, se ha decidido utilizar el país mediterráneo con fines comparativos. La hipótesis planteada consistió en que, más allá de las diferencias estructurales, las desigualdades en salud presentarían patrones similares en ambos países, caracterizados por una economía capitalista. Los grupos sociales en posiciones educativas y ocupacionales favorables exhibirían un mejor estado de salud que los grupos desfavorecidos. Se presentaron algunas estadísticas descriptivas sobre la situación general en los dos países, y luego se analizaron datos provenientes de dos encuestas que recolectan información individual sobre condiciones sociales y estados de salud (EDSA, de 2017 a 2018, y “EHIS - European Health Interview Survey”, ISTAT, 2015). Los resultados muestran que la Argentina e Italia poseen diferentes niveles de bienestar, tasa de mortalidad y servicios de salud, pero que las disparidades relativas en salud parecen muy similares, confirmando la hipótesis de Marmot (2017) sobre la forma general de las desigualdades en salud. Trabajadores manuales y precarios, particularmente las personas desempleadas, sistemáticamente presentan un peor estado de salud percibido con respecto a las clases sociales más altas., 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 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 2017 to 2018, and “EHIS - European Health Interview Survey”, ISTAT 2015). 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., Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación

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.

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.

La salute è influenzata da una serie di fattori tra loro in interazione. Essi possono essere ricondotti a tre dimensioni: condizioni sociali, fattori biologici e caratteristiche contestuali o ecologiche. Un’ampia letteratura riconosce nelle condizioni strutturali un importante determinante del deterioramento delle condizioni di salute degli individui. Sono moltissimi gli studi che documentano un’influenza sulla salute delle tradizionali variabili di stratificazione sociale, come il titolo di studio e la condizione occupazionale. Tuttavia, sappiamo anche che il peggioramento delle condizioni socio-economiche si trasmette solo in parte in modo diretto. Sussistono infatti numerosi effetti trasversali e indipendenti dalla posizione socio-economica legati a stili di vita individuali e familiari. Descrivere le dinamiche di queste relazioni, anche alla luce dei cambiamenti a livello macro, come quelli imposti dalla crisi economica, appare un compito di centrale importanza. Alcuni autori, ad esempio, sostengono che fasi di recessione economica producano effetti ambivalenti sulle condizioni di salute (Karanikolos et al. 2013; Merino 2013; Suhrcke & Stuckler 2012; Ruhm 2000). In questo senso si evidenzia che nei periodi di crisi alcuni comportamenti insalubri tendano a ridursi per una serie di ragioni contingenti, tra cui la minore disponibilità economica di cui gli individui beneficiano. Ad esempio, la crescita delle tasse sull’alcol e sul tabacco per necessità finanziarie avrebbero indotto una riduzione di questi comportamenti pericolosi per la salute. Ancora, si sarebbe osservata in molti paesi una diminuzione delle morti per incidenti stradali, poiché gli automobilisti si sarebbero indirizzati verso mezzi di trasporto meno costosi o avrebbero ridotto i loro viaggi. D’altra parte, comprendere ed esplorare come le abitudini insalubri possano essersi modificate entro i diversi gruppi occupazionali con l’avvento della crisi può aiutare a mettere in atto pratiche di Work Health Promotion (WHP), ossia forme di promozione della salute attivate dai datori di lavoro, privati e pubblici, che consentono di attuare interventi di prevenzione mirati e di maggiore efficacia nei luoghi di lavoro. Date queste premesse, in questo studio è nostro interesse mostrare i cambiamenti in alcuni fattori di rischio negli anni della crisi. Ciò sarà fatto impiegando i dati ISTAT Multiscopo Aspetti della vita quotidiana. Le analisi saranno condotte con tecniche di regressione multivariata gerarchica e tecniche di riduzione dei dati. Tra i fattori di rischio epidemiologicamente validati l’attenzione è stata posta sui seguenti: 1) fumo (Gallus et al. 2015); 2) alcool (Ruhm 1995); 3) dieta (Merino 2013); 4) attività fisica (Karanikolos et al. 2013). L’obiettivo più generale dello studio è dunque migliorare la comprensione dell’intricato sistema di relazioni tra variabili socio-economiche, stili di vita e salute, in modo da offrire conoscenze utili al decisore politico, al fine di predisporre interventi maggiormente informati di prevenzione primaria e secondaria sulla salute. Inoltre, di una conoscenza più approfondita delle dinamiche in atto possono beneficiare i datori di lavoro, che in una prospettiva di WHP, saranno in grado di promuovere con più efficacia pratiche a sostegno di stili di vita sani. Più in particolare lo scopo di questo lavoro è comprendere quali siano i percorsi attraverso cui gli svantaggi occupazionali possono tradursi in stili di vita insalubri e conseguentemente in peggiori condizioni di salute. Intervenire in modo perequativo, al fine di ridurre le disuguaglianze di salute, può significare sia agire sulla disuguaglianza sociale tout court, ma anche intervenire sugli snodi attraverso cui questa disuguaglianza si riverbera sulla salute.

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.

In the last few years, much sociological debate has focused on individualisation theory, especially on Beck's risk society version. According to this theory, contemporary social change can be interpreted as the progressive weakening of the influence of social structures on individual behaviour. Individualisation theory has been adopted in many fields of study (voting behaviour, consumption behaviour, etc.). Although much of the debate has a theoretical character, there have been some attempts to empirically assess individualisation theory. As far as poverty is concerned, scholars supporting individualisation theory, as well as scholars opposing it, have adopted one of the following methodological strategies: highlighting the role played by individual variables (especially by life course variables) rather than structural variables; controlling for individual rather than structural variables. Both these approaches focus on short observation windows; however, it is necessary to consider long periods ...

In recent years, Italian citizens have increasingly been asked to share pharmaceutical costs, but at the same time, households' medicines expenditure has decreased. Cost-sharing policies have to be assessed not just in terms of limitation of moral hazard and revenue to the state, but also for equal opportunities for citizen users accessing health services. The aim of this article is to analyze how Italian co-payment policies (“ticket”) on medicines may affect pharmaceutical expenditure of households, considering territorial and social groups variation. We reviewed the per capita private spending on medicines of Italian regions, separating pharmaceutical outlay and “ticket.” Across the period 2001–2010 we found that the overall per capita private spending on medicines remained substantially stable, although medicine expenditure decreases while the “ticket” increases. When cost sharing rises, out-of-pocket spending on medicines by poorer families seems to remain unchanged; however, poorer families seem to reduce their pharmaceutical expenditure. Our analysis suggests that applying co-payment in Italy is partly successful, in terms of greater revenue to the health system, but in the last few years, cost-sharing increases would seem to have rebounded negatively on more vulnerable families, due to the economic crisis.

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.

In recent years Italian citizens have increasingly been asked to share pharmaceutical cost but at the same time households’ medicines expenditures has decreased. Cost-sharing policies have to be assessed not just in terms of limitation of moral hazard and revenue to the State, but also for equal opportunities for citizen users accessing health services. The aim of this paper is to analyze how Italian copayment policies (‘ticket’) on medicines may affect pharmaceutical expenditure of households, considering territorial (Regions) and social groups (differentiated on the basis of deciles of equivalent consumption) variation. We use cross-sectional data from ISTAT Italian household consumptions survey and OSMED on revenue from ‘tickets’ on medicines in the Italian Regions. We applied two regression models (Tobit and OLS) to estimate coefficients between the consumption deciles and the expenditure on medicines. Across the period 2001-2010 we found that the overall per capita private spending on medicines remained substantially stable, although medicine expenditure decreases whereas the ‘ticket’ increases. When cost-sharing raises, out of pocket spending on medicines by poorer families seems to remain unchanged, however poorer families seem to reduce their pharmaceutical expenditure. Our analysis suggests that applying copayment in Italy is partly successful, in terms of greater revenue to the health system, but in the last few years cost-sharing increases would seem to have rebounded negatively on more vulnerable families, due to the economic crisis.

The study of inequality in health concerns the relationship between socially structured characteristics and health outcomes. Howewer, health disparities are also linked to purely individual characteristics and contextual ones. In particular, the contextual effect at a national level may reflect differences in the functioning and performing of national health institutions, that may be conceived as further determinants of health inequalities. In this work we aim at estimating the effect of education on self-assessed health across European countries, taking into account potential confounders like age, gender and family social background. Using a multilevel model with individuals nested in countries, we can achieve two aims. First, we can see whether countries differ in their average self-assessed health score. Second, we can test our hypothesis about the existence of a European social gradient, that is that education exerts a relatively constant effect on self-assessed health. We develop our models using data from European Social Surveys (88,842 interviews).

This chapter applies the multilevel regression technique in order to validate the ranking of occupational categories in a reputational scale of social desirability. Such attention to the differences inherent in work roles resumes the topic of the unequal distribution of material and symbolic rewards within societies. A tool widely used by sociologists to grasp the distributive inequalities associated with jobs is the occupational stratification scale or the hierarchical ordering of occupations. The aim of the model presented in this chapter is to validate an occupational stratification scale constructed in 2007 on the basis of the scale developed by de Lillo-Schizzerotto in 1985. The scale consists of 110 occupational categories constructed as the aggregate of 676 occupations (described in detail) which 2000 interviewees were asked to evaluate in terms of their social desirability. The ordering of the scale is validated through decomposition of the heterogeneity of the evaluations. The multilevel model shows that the 110 categories explain large part of this heterogeneity, also with the socio-demographic characteristics of the interviewees remaining equal

Our study investigates changes occurred in the Italian social stratification in the last twenty years.It is based on stratification studies that consider individual occupations as the main aspect of the immaterial and material resource allocation and, more precisely, the studies that order occupations along a continuum by their social desiderability. At this aim we compare the de Lillo-Schizzerotto Scale (1985) with a new edition of the same scale, realized in 2005 by an inter-university research equipe; doing this, we focused on scores and ranking of the occupational categories in the two scales.Metric and ordinal association measures between the two Scales do not show significant changes in the structure of perceived desiderability of occupations in the Italian labour market.Therefore, in this point of view, twenty years later results confirm the stability of the social inequality system in our country.

This article analyzes trends over time in the relationship between social class and political preferences in EU countries. Multilevel models and logistic regression techniques are employed to examine Eurobarometer data for thirteen nations between 1976 and 2003. In the comparative research addressing the issue of long-term changes in class politics, class voting is the most common indicator. Instead of focussing on electoral behaviour, we analyze data on respondent's self-placement on a left-right scale. We argue that this indicator presents some relevant advantages when large-scale comparisons across time and space are involved. Our results point to a prevailing stability over time of the association between class position and political preferences.

Today, artificial neural networks are the state of the art for solving a variety of complex tasks, especially in image classification. Such architectures consist of a sequence of stacked layers with the aim of extracting useful information and having it processed by a classifier to make accurate predictions. However, intermediate information within such models is often left unused. In other cases, such as in edge computing contexts, these architectures are divided into multiple partitions that are made functional by including early exits, i.e. intermediate classifiers, with the goal of reducing the computational and temporal load without extremely compromising the accuracy of the classifications. In this paper, we present Anticipate, Ensemble and Prune (AEP), a new training technique based on weighted ensembles of early exits, which aims at exploiting the information in the structure of networks to maximise their performance. Through a comprehensive set of experiments, we show how the use of this approach can yield average accuracy improvements of up to 15% over traditional training. In its hybrid-weighted configuration, AEP's internal pruning operation also allows reducing the number of parameters by up to 41%, lowering the number of multiplications and additions by 18% and the latency time to make inference by 16%. By using AEP, it is also possible to learn weights that allow early exits to achieve better accuracy values than those obtained from single-output reference models.