Maternal childbirth-related mortality in the last 40 years in Turin, Italy: the impact of universal health coverage on inequalities in a developed country.

The aim of this study was to investigate social disparities in childbirth-related mortality in women (CRM) in Italy during 1972-2013, a period characterised by important changes in the organisation of healthcare services. The relationship between education and CRM was assessed using a Poisson regression model adjusted for age, area of birth and year of delivery.The risk of dying from childbirth related causes was more than double for less educated women when compared to women with better education (RR 2.

Decreasing educational differences in mortality over 40 years: evidence from the Turin Longitudinal Study (Italy).

Background: Recent studies suggest that inequalities in premature mortality have continued to rise over the last decade in most European countries, but not in southern European countries.

Methods: In this study, we assess long-term trends (1971-2011) in absolute and relative educational inequalities in all-cause and cause-specific mortality in the Turin Longitudinal Study (Turin, Italy), a record-linkage study including all individuals resident in Turin in the 1971, 1981, 1991 and 2001 censuses, and aged 30-99 years (more than 2 million people). We examined mortality for all causes, cardiovascular disease (CVD), all cancers and specific cancers (lung, breast), as well as smoking and alcohol-related mortality.