Life Expectancy at Birth (2016)
  – Male: 80.5; Female: 84.9; Both Genders: 82.7
Maternal Mortality Ratio (per 100,000 live births) (2017): 2
Neonatal Mortality Rate (per 1,000 live births) (2018): 2
Probability of Dying from any of Cardiovascular Disease, Cancer, Diabetes, Chronic Respiratory Diseases Between Age 30 and Exact Age 70 (%) (2016): 9.5%

Source: World health statistics 2020: monitoring health for the SDGs, sustainable development goals. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2020. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO.

Neonatal Mortality Rate (Deaths Per 1,000 Live Births) (2018): 2
Infant Mortality Rate (Deaths Per 1,000 Live Births) (2018): 3
Under-5 Mortality Rate (Deaths Per 1,000 Live Births) (2018):
  Male: 3; Female: 3

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.”

Source: UNICEF (2019). The State of the World’s Children 2019. Children, Food and Nutrition: Growing well in a changing world. UNICEF, New York.

“At 83.1 years in 2017, Italy continues to enjoy the second highest life expectancy at birth in the EU after Spain and more than two years above the EU average (Figure 1). Between 2000 and 2017, the life expectancy of Italians increased by 3.2 years, a slightly slower gain than in the EU as a whole (3.6 years).

“The gender gap in life expectancy is smaller than the EU average. While Italian women still live more than four years longer than men, this gap has narrowed by 1.5 years as men’s life expectancy increased more rapidly than that of women between 2000 and 2017.”

Source: OECD/European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies (2019), Italy: Country Health Profile 2019, State of Health in the EU, OECD Publishing, Paris/European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, Brussels.

“Although less severe than in most other EU countries, inequalities in life expectancy by socioeconomic status remain non-negligible in Italy. As shown in Figure 2, 30-year-old men with lower levels of education live on average 4.5 years less than those with the highest level of education. This education gap in longevity is smaller among women, at about three years. These gaps can be explained at least partly by differences in exposure to various risk factors and unhealthy lifestyles, including higher smoking rates and poorer nutritional habits among men and women with lower levels of education.

“Regional inequalities in life expectancy also exist but are less pronounced than those by education level. In 2017, the region with the highest life expectancy at birth was the northern region of Trentino-Alto-Adige, where citizens could expect to live over three years longer than in the southern region of Campania, which had the lowest.”

Source: OECD/European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies (2019), Italy: Country Health Profile 2019, State of Health in the EU, OECD Publishing, Paris/European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, Brussels.

“Mortality in Italy is significantly higher among those with a lower education level, the most common proxy of socioeconomic position. According to data from cohorts followed from 1999 to 2007 and 2011, the most disadvantaged subset of the population are women aged between 24 and 64 with the lowest education level, whose mortality rate is twice as high as same-aged women with the highest education level. Moreover, the mortality rate for all cancers is twice as high in adults aged between 25 and 64 of both genders with the lowest educational level compared with the same-aged adults with the highest educational level. Comparison with similar studies in other European countries has shown that the results observed for young women are comparable to northern Europe, while those for cancer-specific mortality among adults are similar to those observed in other southern European countries (ISTAT, 2012a). Risk factors such as being overweight or obese and smoking status are also markedly associated with education level, with a disadvantage for the youngest age groups and those with lowest education (ISTAT/Cnel, 2013).”

Source: Ferré F, de Belvis AG, Valerio L, Longhi S, Lazzari A, Fattore G, Ricciardi W, Maresso A. Italy: Health System Review. Health Systems in Transition, 2014, 16(4):1–168.

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

Page last updated April 20, 2021 by Doug McVay, Editor.