Social inequalities in health within the City of Milan (Lombardy Region, Northern Italy): An ecological assessment.

Objectives: to document existing geographical inequalities in health in the city of Milan (Lombardy Region, Northern Italy), examining the association between area socioeconomic disadvantage and health outcomes, with the aim to suggest policy action to tackle them.

Design: the analysis used an ecological framework; multiple health indicators were considered in the analysis; socioeconomic disadvantage was measured through indicators such as low education, unemployment, immigration status, and housing crowding. For each municipal statistical area, Bayesian Relative Risks of the outcomes (using the Besag-Yorkand-Mollié model) were plotted on the city map.

Nordic paradox in action: The complicated relation between social mobility and health inequalities in an international comparative study.

Aims: Socio-economic inequalities originate from several channels, one of which is family origins, with clear effects on people's health. This paper aims to evaluate the role played by social mobility in determining health inequalities, relying on Blau and Duncan's status attainment model and focusing specifically on two moments of social reproduction of inequalities: one inter-generational, based on the transmission of resources from the family of origin, the other intra-generational, related to the capitalisation of economic resources to maximise well-being.

Methods: Multi-group models of structural equations were used to examine the direct and indirect effects of parental cultural background, education and economic conditions of respondents on self-perceived health in 28 countries, relying on the European Social Survey (=38,879).

The impact of school closure intervention during the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy: Evidence from the Milan area.

Background: In February 2021, the spread of a new variant of SARS-CoV-2 in the Lombardy Region, Italy caused concerns about school-aged children as a source of contagion, leading local authorities to adopt an extraordinary school closure measure. This generated a debate about the usefulness of such an intervention in light of the trade-off between its related benefits and costs (e.g.

A Comparison Between Omicron and Earlier COVID-19 Variants' Disease Severity in the Milan Area, Italy.

Background: In the context of the fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy, which occurred in correspondence with the outbreak of the Omicron variant, it became fundamental to assess differences in the risk of severe disease between the Omicron variant and the earlier SARS-CoV-2 variants that were still in circulation despite Omicron becoming prevalent.

Methods: We collected data on 2,267 genotyped PCR-positive swab tests and assessed whether the presence of symptoms, risk of hospitalization, and recovery times were significantly different between Omicron and the earlier variants. Multivariable models adjusted for sex, age class, citizenship, comorbidities, and symptomatology allowed assessing the difference in outcomes between Omicron and the earlier variants according to vaccination status and timing of administration.

Exploring gender differences in medication consumption and mortality in a cohort of hypertensive patients in Northern Italy.

Background: This paper aims to assess the presence of gender differences in medication use and mortality in a cohort of patients affected exclusively by hypertension, in 193 municipalities in the Lombardy Region (Northern Italy), including Milan's metropolitan area.

Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted (N = 232,507) querying administrative healthcare data and the Register of Causes of Death. Hypertensive patients (55.

Evaluation of the anti-COVID-19 vaccination campaign in the Metropolitan Area of Milan (Lombardy Region, Northern Italy).

Objectives: to present an evaluation of the campaign for vaccination against COVID-19 in the territory covered by the Agency for Health Protection of the Metropolitan Area of Milan from 01.01.2021 to 30.

Assessing the Impact of Individual Characteristics and Neighborhood Socioeconomic Status During the COVID-19 Pandemic in the Provinces of Milan and Lodi.

Social inequalities in health are known to be influenced by the socioeconomic status of the territory in which people live. In the context of the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, this study is aimed at assessing the role of 5 area-level indicators in shaping the risk of contagion in the provinces of Milan and Lodi (Lombardy, Italy), namely: educational disadvantage, unemployment, housing crowding, mobility, and population density. The study area includes the municipalities at the origin of the first Italian epidemic outbreak.

Assessment of the Overall Mortality during the COVID-19 Outbreak in the Provinces of Milan and Lodi (Lombardy Region, Northern Italy).

Objectives: to describe the overall mortality increase in the provinces of Milan and Lodi - area covered by the Agency for Health Protection of Milan - during the COVID-19 epidemic in the first four months of 2020, compare it with the same time period in the years 2016-2019, and evaluate to what extent the mortality can be directly attributed to the outbreak.

Design: cohort study.

Setting And Participants: using a new information system developed during the pandemic, we gathered data on the number of daily deaths in the population residing in the provinces of Milan and Lodi by Local Health Unit (ASST) and age groups.

Describing the epidemic trends of COVID-19 in the area covered by Agency for Health Protection of the Metropolitan Area of Milan.

Objectives: to describe the epidemic trends of COVID-19 over time and by area in the territory covered by Milan's Agency for Health Protection (ATS-MI) from February to May 2020.

Design: descriptive study of COVID-19 cases.

Setting And Participants: a new information system was developed to record COVID-19 cases with positive nasopharyngeal swab.

Social cohesion, psycho-physical well-being and self-efficacy of school-aged children in Lombardy: Results from HBSC study.

Within the literature on health inequalities and social determinants of health, there is a growing interest in studying how the context of residence is able to influence health conditions and health-related outcomes, over and above individual characteristics. Life context affects people's well-being in a material way, through the availability of services and resources, but also through social, cultural and relational resources, to the extent to which people within the same context share norms, values and behaviours affecting their health conditions. In this study, we analysed the association between social cohesion in the context of residence and two health-related outcomes, psycho-physical well-being and self-efficacy, in school-aged children in Lombardy, using data from the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study for 2014.

Association between autoimmune diseases and COVID-19 as assessed in both a test-negative case-control and population case-control design.

Background: COVID-19 epidemic has paralleled with the so called infodemic, where countless pieces of information have been disseminated on putative risk factors for COVID-19. Among those, emerged the notion that people suffering from autoimmune diseases (AIDs) have a higher risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Methods: The cohort included all COVID-19 cases residents in the Agency for Health Protection (AHP) of Milan that, from the beginning of the outbreak, developed a web-based platform that traced positive and negative cases as well as related contacts.

Neighbourhood property value and type 2 diabetes mellitus in the Maastricht study: A multilevel study.

Objective: Low 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 Methods: Using 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.