[Update and review of the 2011 Italian deprivation index calculated at the census section level]

Abstract

Objectives: to produce for the national territory as a whole a deprivation index (ID) at the census section level, based on 2011 census data, in the same way as the Italian index based on the 2001 census, revising the formulation of some indicators.

Setting and participants: the study uses the individual data of the general population and housing census of 2011. For the calculation of the index five conditions were chosen that best describe the multidimensional concept of social and material deprivation: low level of education, being unemployed, living in rent, living in crowded house, living in a single-parent family. The index is calculated as the sum of standardized indicators and is also available categorized into quintiles. Compared to the previous formulation of the ID, the proposed revised ID made use of a low education indicator limited to the age group 15-60; for what concerns single-parent families, only the cohabitations with minor children is considered.

Main outcome measures: reformulated ID and comparison measures between the two indices (correlation, kappa statistic).

Results: the revised index, compared with the previous one, a different quintile distribution for a significant share of census sections, with the exception of the first and fifth quintiles (that of the least deprived and the most deprived ones).

Conclusion: given that in this field of study should be taken for granted the inexistence of a method that produces results objectively and universally valid, the review of the index proposed in this study starts from the availability of analytical data that allowed to overcome some constraints that had induced the choices of the ID proposed in 2010. Anyway, both the original and the revised index produce reliable and consistent results.

Keywords: deprivation index; census tracts; social inequalities; Italy..