The number of Italians who give up on treatment is growing: now it is one in ten, due to waiting lists and economic reasons

The flight from healthcare is worsening due to excessively long waiting lists or because Italians cannot afford treatment. In 2024, one in ten Italians (9.9%) reported having given up on specialist visits or tests in the last 12 months, mainly due to long waiting lists and the difficulty of paying for healthcare services. Istat writes this in its 2025 Annual Report, with data that demonstrate the public healthcare's difficulty: the renunciation of vital services for prevention and treatment is increasing both compared to 2023, when it was 7.5%, and compared to the pre-pandemic period when the figure was 6.3%, "especially due to the worsening of booking difficulties", Istat warns. According to the document, in 2024 public spending on healthcare services rose to 130.1 billion from 123.767 billion in 2023

In 2024, approximately 6 million Italians, one in 10 citizens (9.9%), gave up specialist visits or tests, mainly due to long waiting lists (6.8%) and difficulties in paying for healthcare services (5.3%). The refusal of healthcare services is increasing both compared to 2023 (7.5%), and compared to the pre-pandemic period (6.3% in 2019), especially due to the worsening of booking difficulties. And the data that emerges clearly is the weight of the queues to access services which, especially after Covid, has become the number one enemy of patients, overcoming economic reasons. The refusal of care affects especially women and adults aged 45-54, and is also increasing in the North and among the most educated, reducing traditional social and territorial advantages. Another side of the coin is the recourse to private care which is growing more and more. Compared to 2023, the report summary states, the use of private care - that is, covering the entire cost of the last service without reimbursement from insurance companies - involved a greater share of people, rising from 19.9 to 23.9% of the population.

Although life expectancy at birth is increasing, the share of years lived in good health is decreasing, especially for women. In 2024, men can expect to live 59.8 years in good health on average, in line with 2019. For women, however, the value drops to 56.6 years, the lowest in the last decade. In 2022, the avoidable mortality rate is 17.7 deaths per 10,000 inhabitants, the lowest value in the European Union after Sweden. Italy is among the countries with the best performances in both components of avoidable mortality: preventable mortality, mainly linked to primary prevention and the promotion of healthy lifestyles, and treatable mortality, associated, instead, with the ability of the health system to diagnose and treat promptly. The preventable mortality rate is 11.3 per 10,000 in 2022 and the treatable mortality rate is 6.3 per 10,000. However, in the context of the European Union, Italy loses positions for the treatable component, highlighting a slowdown in the capacity of the health system to guarantee timely diagnosis and treatment.

In Italy, higher preventable and treatable mortality rates are observed for people with lower levels of education. The preventable mortality rates of men and women with at most an elementary school diploma (41.1 and 15.7 per 10,000 respectively) are more than double those with at least a university degree (16.8 for graduates and 7.6 for female graduates). Similarly, for treatable mortality, the rate of less educated men (15 deaths per 10,000) is 2.1 times higher than that of the most educated (rate equal to 7.1), while for women this ratio is less than and equal to 1.8. In 2024, the mental health index stands at 68.4 points on average. Psychological distress worsens with increasing age. The highest average value of the index is found among young people aged 14-24 (70.4 points) and reaches the minimum (65.1) among people aged 75 and over. Gender inequalities in psychological distress are marked, especially between young people and the elderly. Among 14-24 year olds, the gap between women and men is 6.1 points (67.2 against 73.3). Even among the over 75s, psychological distress among women is higher than that of men (lower mental health index 62.7 against 68.5).

Disability conditions affect 2.9 million people in Italy in 2023 (5 percent of the population), of which 1 million 690 thousand are women. The highest share of people with disabilities is found in the older age groups: 6.9 percent in the 65-74 age group and 19.2 percent among the elderly aged 75 and over. Among women, the prevalence is lower than that of men up to the age of 64, while for the following age groups, the share of women with disabilities exceeds that of men. Only 9.8 percent of people with disabilities declare that they are well or very well, compared to 83.1 percent of the rest of the population. Over the years, the share of people with disabilities who declare that they are unwell or very unwell has decreased (from 61% in 2010 to 57.3% in 2023). From 2010 to 2023, the percentage of people with disabilities with at least one chronic disease fluctuated around 88 percent (33 percent in the rest of the population).