In Italy, healthy life expectancy drop dramatically: from 2004 to 2008 there was a 10 years drop among newborn girls

In this short essay, we would like to address a severe divergence observed in Italy between Life Expectancy (LE) and Healthy Life Expectancy (Healthy LE) and a unique trend of worsening in Healthy LE, compared to the other European countries. Both issues emerge in recent data by EUROSTAT Report.

The analysis used by the authors of the EUROSTAT report is based on Sullivan method which combines 2 type of variables: mortality and morbidity data.

While several European countries started to deal with comparable data about LE since 1960, in Italy, analogous data were available for the first time in EUROSTAT Report only in 1985. In Italy, in the period 1985-2008, there was a good progressive increase in L.E., following the best European values. Nevertheless, while until 2004 Italy was among the European best countries in terms of both LE and Healthy LE at birth, four years later in 2008 there was a shocking loss of 10 years of Healthy LE at birth in newborn girls. In the process, they lost their 2-years previous advantage with respect to males (the latter lost only 6 years of Healthy LE, in the same time span). Looking at healthy LE at age 65 in respect to 2004, Italian women in 2008 could expect to live healthy only about 7 years (as much as men) versus the almost 15 years of the European best values (14 years for men).

It is legitimate to wonder why no one official comment has been produced as a reaction after the first year of spectacular decline in Healthy Life Years in Italy: in counter-tendency with European values, from 2004 to 2008 there is a clear evidence of a 10 years drop in Healthy LE among newborn girls. The problem has not been taken into consideration even when the situation clearly appeared to worsen in the following years, dropping 4-6 more years for males and females in 2006 (for newborn babies); two more years of healthy life expectancy have been lost between 2006 and 2007 for each gender. One more year of Healthy Life Expectancy is lost in 2008. And data have not been made available any more, since then, from Italy.