2007 - Identificazione di aree regionali in base a criteri socio-demografici, socio-economici e geografici

Economic, social and environmental features of a geographic area contribute to define heath needs of people living in that area. Therefore, the health planning and management system should be able to identify specific answers according to the characteristics of an area including income and social status, education, employment/ working conditions, social environments, physical environments, biology and genetic endowment and the health services themselves.

Assessing health needs of a specific area according to its geographic characteristics can help decision makers to improve both the allocative and cost efficiency of health services, both the quality of the health care. Aiming at these goals, the Health Direction of Regione Lombardia committed a research project to IReR to identify a core set of social, economic, environmental and health indicators able to identify areas with the same health needs. 

A set of 24 indicators has been selected with the aim of identifying areas by grouping municipalities with similar economic, environmental and social characteristics and therefore with the same health needs. Such indicators are classified in three different categories: Driving Force, State and Response. Driving force indicators are all those factors influencing people’s health, such us lifestyle, income or air pollution. State indicators include any kind of  health issue, such as infectious disease, mental illness or mortality rate. Finally, Response indicators describe how and how much public authorities effectively meets the health needs of the population (see, for example, hospital bed supply or prevention campaign). 

Two different statistical approaches, cluster analysis and z-score, will be applied to make a health ranking of all municipalities in Regione Lombardia. These indicators are meant to allow the identification of areas having similar health needs and the resulting health services supply.