In Italy there is a "higher use of drugs and associated with more disadvantaged conditions in Southern Italy, as if to indicate a greater demand for healthcare in these regions".
This was explained by the director general of the Italian Medicines Agency (Aifa), Nicola Magrini, introducing the presentation of the first "Atlas of social inequalities in the use of drugs for the treatment of the main chronic diseases".
The idea of an atlas was born, within the National Observatory on the Use of Medicines (OsMed), he explained, "in order to try to provide a 'socio-economic' interpretation of the strong territorial differences regarding the use of drugs in Italy ".
Another relevant element, added Magrini, is the presence of "a substantial private, or out of pocket, expenditure for drugs in Italy, which should be better examined and could represent a factor of further differentiation between rich and poor regions", especially for the categories of drugs not reimbursed by the health service.
Inequalities in the state of health, writes in the preface of the Magrini report, "depend on numerous interrelated and overlapping factors: providing a framework on one of the most important aspects for the health of citizens, such as the use of drugs, offers a further key of reading of social inequalities ". (HANDLE).
