Covid-19 and social and health inequalities in Italy: a syndemic approach

The article begins by introducing three questions that make the Italian case of health inequalities during the COVID-19 pandemic particularly interesting and goes on to discuss the problem of an appropriate and valid model to analyse the outbreak, defining it as a “syndemic” and not simply a pandemic. Given the unsatisfactory heuristic value of the current, most common models of social determinants of health inequalities in terms of the syndemic approach, a new non-linear circular causal model is proposed. Its application to the case of Italy to analyse the COVID-19 syndemic outcomes in terms of exposure, susceptibility, access to healthcare, and quality of life is then presented and discussed in detail. The conclusions reached highlight how the responses to the three initial questions confirm the validity of the application of the model proposed and the possible utilization of the results obtained for policy action.