Unmet Need for Health Care: The Case of Foreigners Living in Italy

Valeria Cetorelli, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)

Italy has a public and universal health care system that covers -in principle- all resident population, including both regular and irregular immigrants. However, the concrete shows that immigrants in Italy experience specific inequalities in access to health care, that add up to the existing socioeconomic and geographical disparities in access to care across the country. This study aims to compare unmet need for health care between Italian citizens and the numerous foreign-national groups living in Italy. In particular, we study self-reported unmet need as an indicator of access to health care, exploring its reasons. Data used for the analysis are from the 2009 standard Italian Survey on Income and Living Conditions (IT-SILC) and the 2009 special Italian Survey on Income and Living Conditions of Households with Foreigners.