Volume 39 - Article 21 | Pages 635–646
Cause-specific mortality as a sentinel indicator of current socioeconomic conditions in Italy
Date received: | 17 Oct 2017 |
Date published: | 26 Sep 2018 |
Word count: | 2458 |
Keywords: | cause-specific mortality, inequalities, infant mortality, socioeconomic indicators, vulnerability index |
DOI: | 10.4054/DemRes.2018.39.21 |
Abstract
Background: In the last few years the need for disaggregated statistics at small territorial levels to monitor the social and economic conditions of the various areas of a country has increased considerably. The question of how to define these indicators has been the topic of a recent international debate.
Objective: This study aims to assess whether simple, widely available demographic indexes, like mortality measures, may serve as sentinel indicators of economic development and social wellbeing in Italy.
Methods: We analyse and compare the geographical patterns of the infant mortality rate and of the mortality rates for leading causes of death with the spatial pattern found for a more complex index, the vulnerability index, recently introduced by the Italian National Institute for Statistics at the provincial level in contemporary Italy.
Results: Mortality from leading causes of death such as diseases of the circulatory system, and mortality from increasingly emergent causes of death such as diabetes, may offer a valid statistic to grasp economic development and social wellbeing in Italy today.
Conclusions: Our findings are important because policymakers need to rely on indicators with the following fundamental properties: easy availability, clear definition, temporal continuity, and spatial comparability.
Contribution: This study contributes to the literature by showing that mortality data is a straightforward and powerful tool to help policymakers plan appropriate interventions.
Author's Affiliation
Elisabetta Barbi - Università degli Studi di Roma La Sapienza, Italy
Oliviero Casacchia - Università degli Studi di Roma La Sapienza, Italy
Filomena Racioppi - Università degli Studi di Roma La Sapienza, Italy
Other articles by the same author/authors in Demographic Research
»
Italy: Delayed adaptation of social institutions to changes in family behaviour
Volume 19 - Article 19
Most recent similar articles in Demographic Research
»
Urban–rural differentials in Latin American infant mortality
Volume 42 - Article 8 | Keywords: infant mortality
»
Trajectory of inequality of opportunity in child height growth: Evidence from the Young Lives study
Volume 42 - Article 7 | Keywords: inequalities
»
Maternal educational attainment and infant mortality in the United States: Does the gradient vary by race/ethnicity and nativity?
Volume 41 - Article 25 | Keywords: infant mortality
»
Race/ethnic inequalities in early adolescent development in the United Kingdom and United States
Volume 40 - Article 6 | Keywords: inequalities
»
The geography of early childhood mortality in England and Wales, 1881–1911
Volume 37 - Article 58 | Keywords: infant mortality
Articles
Citations
Cited References: 12
»View the references of this article
Download to Citation Manager
Similar Articles
PubMed
»Articles by Oliviero Casacchia
»Articles by Filomena Racioppi
Google Scholar
»Articles by Oliviero Casacchia
»Articles by Filomena Racioppi