Social differences in health and utilization of health services in Italy

This paper describes the present pattern of mortality, morbidity, invalidity, use of services, and life-style according to relevant social characteristics. On the whole, the empirical evidence shows that lower socioeconomic groups, identified either by level of education, profession, or region of residence, continue to score worse on different health measures despite a general improvement in their state of health. Two results are of particular importance. Some southern regions accumulated a higher concentration of ill-health conditions and became multi-problem areas. Middle and, above all, upper social groups have increasingly used the private health sector despite that fact that they are covered under the National Health Service provisions. This last development may be counter-productive for the strategy of equalization introduced in 1978 with the NHS.