Refueling a Quiet Fire: Old Truthers and New Discontent in the Wake of COVID-19.

This article investigates the factors that contributed to the proliferation of online COVID skepticism on Twitter across Italian municipalities in 2020. We demonstrate that sociodemographic factors were likely to mitigate the emergence of skepticism, whereas populist political leanings were more likely to foster it. Furthermore, pre-COVID anti-vaccine sentiment, represented by "old truthers" on Twitter, amplified online COVID skepticism in local communities.

The changing relationship between bodyweight and longevity in high- and low-income countries.

Standard measures of bodyweight (overweight and obese, for example) fail to reflect differences across populations and technological progress over time. This paper builds on the pioneering work of Hans Waaler (1984) and Robert Fogel (1994) to empirically estimate how the relationship between body mass index (BMI) and longevity varies across high-, middle-, and low-income countries. Importantly, we show that these differences are so profound that the share of national populations above mortality-minimizing bodyweight is not clearly greater in countries with higher overweight and obesity rates (as traditionally defined)-and in fact, relative to current standards, a larger share of low-income countries' populations can be unhealthily heavy.

Psychotropic drug purchases during the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy and their relationship with mobility restrictions.

Recent literature on the mental health consequences of social distancing measures has found a substantial increase in self-reported sleep disorders, anxiety and depressive symptoms during lockdown periods. We investigate this issue with data on monthly purchases of psychotropic drugs from the universe of Italian pharmacies during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and find that purchases of mental health-related drugs have increased with respect to 2019. However, the excess volumes do not match the massive increase in anxiety and depressive disorders found in survey-based studies.

Health status and the Great Recession. Evidence from electronic health records.

We investigate the impact of the Great Recession in Italy on the incidence of chronic diseases using new individual longitudinal data from Electronic Health Records. We exploit the exogenous shock in the economic conditions occurred in 2008 to estimate heterogeneous effects of an unprecedented rise in local unemployment rates in an individual fixed-effects model. Our results document that harsh economic downturns have a negative long-lasting effect on cardiovascular disease and a temporary effect on depression.

LongITools: Dynamic longitudinal exposome trajectories in cardiovascular and metabolic noncommunicable diseases.

The current epidemics of cardiovascular and metabolic noncommunicable diseases have emerged alongside dramatic modifications in lifestyle and living environments. These correspond to changes in our "modern" postwar societies globally characterized by rural-to-urban migration, modernization of agricultural practices, and transportation, climate change, and aging. Evidence suggests that these changes are related to each other, although the social and biological mechanisms as well as their interactions have yet to be uncovered.

When particulate matter strikes cities: Social disparities and health costs of air pollution.

We investigate the heterogeneous effects of particle pollution on Italian daily hospitalizations and their costs by exploiting public transportation strikes as plausibly-exogenous shocks in pollution exposure. We find that a one standard deviation increase in PM causes additional 0.79 hospitalizations per 100,000 residents, and the effect is stronger for the elderly, low educated individuals and migrants.

How health policy shapes healthcare sector productivity? Evidence from Italy and UK.

The English (NHS) and the Italian (SSN) healthcare systems share many similar features: basic founding principles, financing, organization, management, and size. Yet the two systems have faced diverging policy objectives since 2000, which may have affected differently healthcare sector productivity in the two countries. In order to understand how different healthcare policies shape the productivity of the systems, we assess, using the same methodology, the productivity growth of the English and Italian healthcare systems over the period from 2004 to 2011.

Trends in age-related disease burden and healthcare utilization.

Aging is a strong risk factor for many chronic diseases. However, the impact of an aging population on the prevalence of chronic diseases and related healthcare costs are not known. We used a prevalence-based approach that combines accurate clinical and drug prescription data from Health Search CSD-LPD.

Heterogeneity in long term health outcomes of migrants within Italy.

This article examines the long term physical and mental health effects of internal migration focusing on a relatively unique migration experience concentrated over a short period between 1950 and 1970 from the South to the North of Italy. We find a positive and statistically significant association between migration, its timing and physical health for migrant females, which we show are likely to represent rural females in both the early and the late cohort. We find less defined evidence of migration-health association for mental health.

Excess body weight increases the burden of age-associated chronic diseases and their associated health care expenditures.

Aging and excessive adiposity are both associated with an increased risk of developing multiple chronic diseases, which drive ever increasing health costs. The main aim of this study was to determine the net (non-estimated) health costs of excessive adiposity and associated age-related chronic diseases. We used a prevalence-based approach that combines accurate data from the Health Search CSD-LPD, an observational dataset with patient records collected by Italian general practitioners and up-to-date health care expenditures data from the SiSSI Project.

Body weight, eating patterns, and physical activity: the role of education.

In this article, we empirically study the role of education attainment on individual body mass index (BMI), eating patterns, and physical activity. We allow for endogeneity of schooling choices for females and males in a mean and quantile instrumental variables framework. We find that completion of lower secondary education has a significant positive impact on reduction of individual BMI, containment of calorie consumption, and promotion of physical activity.

The impact of cost-sharing schemes on drug compliance in Italy: evidence based on quantile regression.

Objectives: In this article we investigate the causal effect of cost-sharing schemes on compliance with statins in a quantile regression framework.

Methods: We use the health search CSD-LPD data, a longitudinal observational dataset containing computer-based patient records collected by Italian general practitioners. We exploit a series of natural experiments referring to several introductions of co-payment schemes in some of the Italian regions between 2000 and 2009.