On 15 September, at 10.00am, the Italian Medicines Agency will present the first "Atlas of social inequalities in medicines use for the treatment of major chronic diseases".
The aim of the report is to compare and describe the use of medicines prescribed for the main chronic diseases in Italy among population groups with different socio-economic conditions, as measured by a deprivation index that takes account of various factors such as education, unemployment, household composition, density and housing status.

The results of the analysis are broken down by province for the whole national territory and by main chronic disease.
In the adult population, data on territorial pharmaceutical prescription for NHS-reimbursed medicines against hypertension, dyslipidaemia, hypothyroidism, hyperthyroidism, depression, dementia, Parkinson’s disease, osteoporosis, benign prostatic hypertrophy, hyperuricemia and gout, diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) have been analysed.  
In the paediatric population, prescription data for medicines against asthma, epilepsy and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) were analysed.

“Inequalities in health – wrote Director General Nicola Magrini in the preface – depend on many related and overlapping factors: providing an overview at population level of one of the most relevant aspects of citizens’ health, that is medicines use, offers an additional key to interpret social inequalities; to effectively counter them, a complete and in-depth knowledge of all aspects of health cannot be disregarded”.

The presentation will be live streamed on AIFA’s YouTube channel at the following link: https://youtu.be/8gA0vjkVzPo