Mortalità e cause di morte degli stranieri in Italia (1997-2002)

This paper aims to examine disparities in mortality rates between immigrants and Italians as well as between migrant groups residing in the host society and those residing in their homeland. Not only do we attempt to identify the existence in Italy of an advantage of immigrants’ mortality rates, but we also analyze the advantage taking into account the causes of deaths. Standardized Mortality Ratios (SMR) are used to calculate and compare data. Italian data is retrieved from the National Institute of Statistics of Italy (Istat). The dataset contains the total number of deaths in Italy between 1997 and 2002 (N > 5 milions, by nationality, sex, age, cause according to ICD9). Data on deaths of immigrants residing in their homeland is retrieved from the World Health Organization. We choose to use the numbers of residence permits granted in Italy during the period 1997-2002 as proxy of immigrants’ population in Italy. Our main result is the identification of lower mortality rates of some immigrant nationalities than those of Italians. The advantage is reliable even when we observe mortality rates of compatriots residing in the country of origin. However, the extent of this advantage varies depending on the causes of death. The advantage is low when factors related to the context of arrival are at work, as it is the case of cancer, traumatisms, poisoning or violent deaths. These results are consistent with previous findings from immigrants’ physical and mental health researches. In particular, our findings seem to confirm the healthy migrant theory which explains this phenomenon as the result of immigrant selectivity. On one hand these findings highlight the utility of analyzing mortality rates of immigrants taking into account the causes of deaths and the homeland context. On the other hand they show that further research and sounder methods are needed to a better understanding of the factors that explain the identified differences