Italy: Health System Outcomes - World Health Systems Facts

Population aged 15 years and over rating their own health as bad or very bad, 2021: 8.1%
Population aged 15 years and over rating their own health as good or very good, by income quintile, 2021
– Highest quintile: 79.1%
– Lowest quintile: 72.0%
– Total: 73.5%
Life expectancy at birth, 2021: 82.7 years
Infant mortality, deaths per 1,000 live births, 2021: 2.4
Maternal mortality rate, deaths per 100,000 live births, 2020: 4.6
Congestive heart failure hospital admission in adults, age-sex standardized rate per 100,000 population, 2021: 160
Asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease hospital admissions in adults, age-sex standardized rate per 100,000 population, 2021: 23
Adults aged 65 and over rating their own health as good or very good, 2021: 43%
Adults aged 65 and over rating their own health as poor or very poor, by income, 2021
– Lowest quintile: 24%
– Highest quintile: 14%
– Total: 20%
Limitations in daily activities in adults aged 65 and over, 2021
– Severe Limitations: 16%
– Some Limitations: 32%
Estimated prevalence of dementia per 1,000 population, 2021: 23.4
Estimated prevalence of dementia per 1,000 population, 2040: 29.2

Source: OECD (2023), Health at a Glance 2023: OECD Indicators, OECD Publishing, Paris, doi.org/10.1787/7a7afb35-en.

Life Expectancy at Birth, 2022: 84.06
Infant Mortality Rate, 2022 (per 1,000 live births): 2.14
Under-Five Mortality Rate, 2022 (per 1,000 live births): 2.56

Source: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2023). Data Portal, custom data acquired via website. United Nations: New York. Accessed 12 May 2023.

Life expectancy at birth, 2021: 82.2 years
Maternal mortality ratio (per 100,000 live births), 2020: 5
Under-five mortality rate (per 1,000 live births), 2022: 3
Neonatal mortality rate (per 1,000 live births), 2022: 2
Probability of dying between age 30 and exact age 70 from any of cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, or chronic respiratory disease, 2019: 8.9%

Source: World health statistics 2024: monitoring health for the SDGs, Sustainable Development Goals: Statistical Annex. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2024. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO. Last accessed June 6, 2024.

Neonatal Mortality Rate, 2021: 1
Infant Mortality Rate, 2021: 2
Under-5 Mortality Rate, 2021: 3
Maternal Mortality Ratio, 2020: 5

Note: “Under-5 mortality rate – Probability of dying between birth and exactly 5 years of age, expressed per 1,000 live births.
“Infant mortality rate – Probability of dying between birth and exactly 1 year of age, expressed per 1,000 live births.
“Neonatal mortality rate – Probability of dying during the first 28 days of life, expressed per 1,000 live births.”
“Maternal mortality ratio – Number of deaths of women from pregnancy-related causes per 100,000 live births during the same time period (modelled estimates).”

Source: United Nations Children’s Fund, The State of the World’s Children 2023: For every child, vaccination, UNICEF Innocenti – Global Office of Research and Foresight, Florence, April 2023.

Maternal Deaths Per 100,000 Live Births, 2020: 5

Source: Trends in maternal mortality 2000 to 2020: estimates by WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA, World Bank Group and UNDESA/Population Division. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2023. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO.

“The majority of the Italian population has a high standard of living and quality of life resulting, in part, from well-established health policies and welfare measures. Prior to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, well-being and sustainability indicators showed a generally positive performance, although geographical inequalities and a gender gap in life expectancy continue to be significant. Average life expectancy at birth in Italy had been growing steadily over the last two and a half decades, reaching 83.6 years in 2019, then the second highest in Europe. It decreased temporarily back to 82.4 years in 2020 due to the impact of the high numbers of COVID-19-related deaths (Table 1.3). Even so, in 2020 Italy had the third-highest total life expectancy at birth among EU countries.”

Source: OECD/European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies (2023), Italy: Country Health Profile 2023, State of Health in the EU, OECD Publishing, Paris/European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, Brussels.

“Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the main cause of death in Italy, along with cancer and, since 2020, infectious respiratory diseases, moving neurological diseases down to fourth place (The European House – Ambrosetti, 2021). In 2020, the year of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, total deaths from all causes were the highest recorded since the Second World War: 746,146 deaths, which is more than 100,000 extra deaths compared with the 2015–2019 average (equal to an excess mortality rate of 15.6%) (ISTAT – ISS, 2021). Multimorbidity and chronic diseases in the older population are major challenges for the health care system.

“The most common diseases in the elderly, for both genders, are osteoarthritis (47.6%), hypertension (47%), lumbar disease (31.5%), cervical diseases (28.7%), hyperlipidaemia (24.7%), heart disease (19.3%) and diabetes (16.8%) (ISTAT, 2021c).

“Italy has among the lowest infant and neonatal mortality rates in the EU (2.5 deaths per 1,000 live births, compared with the EU average of 3.2 in 2020), explained by effective preventive measures and skilled assistance during pregnancy and at delivery.”

“Since 2011, amenable mortality rates have been among the lowest in Europe, and in 2019, Italy had the sixth lowest rate among EU countries. In the Italian regions, the best performers are all located in the centre-north. In 70% of cases, amenable mortality rates have been linked to colon and rectal cancers (19.09%), cerebrovascular diseases (18.23%), ischaemic heart disease (17.06%), and breast cancer (16.66%) (ONSRI, 2020).¹⁶ In the past 30 years, death rates for cardiovascular diseases have decreased by more than half and for neoplasms by almost a third. However, in parallel, dementia and Alzheimer’s diseases are increasing along with chronic respiratory diseases, hypertension, influenza and pneumonia (Monasta et al., 2019). Behavioural risk factors and demographic changes seem to play an important role in these trends.

“Following reductions between 2011 and 2019 in ischaemic heart disease,¹⁷ lung cancer, accidental deaths, suicide and alcohol-related diseases, preventable mortality values also are all well below the EU average, given the lower prevalence of risk factors, effective treatments and lower incidence of these health conditions.”

Source: de Belvis AG, Meregaglia M, Morsella A, Adduci A, Perilli A, Cascini F, Solipaca A, Fattore G, Ricciardi W, Maresso A, Scarpetti G. Italy: Health system review. Health Systems in Transition, 2022; 24(4): pp.i–203.

“Italy’s low levels of preventable deaths can also be explained, at least in part, by solid public health policies that have been implemented from the early 2000s. A nationwide indoor smoking ban in public places and workplaces was implemented in 2005 (Mele & Compagni, 2010), and increases in cigarette prices were subsequently enforced although they remain low compared with other European countries. In 2013, stricter rules on tobacco access among young people were also introduced: the minimum purchase age was raised to 18 years; higher fines were imposed on tobacco retailers who sold cigarettes to minors; automatic age-detection systems were installed in tobacco vending machines; a smoking ban was extended to the outdoor premises of schools; and a ban on sales of electronic cigarettes to minors was implemented. In addition, in 2016, a new law regulated the combination of images and warnings on cigarette packs and introduced a smoking ban in cars (in the presence of pregnant women and minors) and in the outdoor premises of hospitals. However, it is worth noting that according to national data, the number of daily smokers grew steadily during the COVID-19 pandemic, rising from 22% of the adult population in April 2020 to 24% in November 2020, a value that then increased by more than 1 million people from November 2020 to May 2021 (26.2%), which is equivalent to a rise of over two percentage points in the share of the Italian population smoking regularly (ISS, 2022).

“Alcohol consumption – people (aged 11 and over) having at least one alcoholic drink during the year – was stable from 2019 to 2020 (66.8% and 66.4% of the population, respectively) (ISTAT, 2020e); a similar trend is found for daily consumption, while consumption out of meal times continues to increase. Year-over-year alcohol consumption is strongest in the north-eastern part of the country. Among over-25 year olds, the percentage of alcoholic beverage consumers increases as the level of education increases. This is the case especially for women: in 2020, among those with an elementary school qualification, 41.6% consume alcohol at least once a year, a quota that rises to 74.3% among university graduates (Ministero della Salute, 2021a).”

Italy: Health System Outcomes - National Policies - World Health Systems Facts

World Health Systems Facts is a project of the Real Reporting Foundation. We provide reliable statistics and other data from authoritative sources regarding health systems and policies in the US and sixteen other nations.

Page last updated February 24, 2025 by Doug McVay, Editor.