Trends in the Use of Home LTC Services in Large, Medium and Small Municipalities in Italy: Lessons for the Post-COVID-19 Reappraisal

Carlo Lallo (), Marta Pasqualini and Cecilia Tomassini
Additional contact information
Carlo Lallo: Department of Economics, University of Molise, Via F. De Sanctis, 86100 Campobasso, Italy
Marta Pasqualini: Department MEMOTEF, Sapienza University of Rome, Via del Castro Laurenziano 9, 00161 Rome, Italy
Cecilia Tomassini: Department of Economics, University of Molise, Via F. De Sanctis, 86100 Campobasso, Italy

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 19, 1-12

Abstract: Italian Long-Term Care is considered largely inadequate, and the recent COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically exposed its limitations. Public Home Care Services in particular were revealed as under-financed and unable to cover the potential demand for care from the older population. But does the type of municipality and its geographic location play a role in creating or mitigating unmet demand? This is the first study addressing this research question in Italy. Our hypothesis is that older people’s care preferences and care possibilities may vary between small, medium and metropolitan areas, as will the organisation, funding and availability of services, and the combination will influence (unmet) demand for public home care services. In this paper, using nationally representative survey data collected by the Italian National Statistical Institute in 2003 and 2016, we investigate changes and differences in the use of public and private home care services among people aged 75 or older in Italy by size of the municipality. Our results reveal inequalities in service use between Northern and Southern areas of the country and in particular between metropolitan areas, medium and small municipalities. Such differences reinforce post-pandemic calls for new investment and changes in the design of the Italian Long-Term Care system.

Keywords: Italy; LTC; care provision; ageing in place; municipality size; regional differences; COVID-19 pandemic (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/19/12796/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/19/12796/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:19:p:12796-:d:934764

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().