31/01/2025 h 11.30 in Aula De Lillo (II piano Edificio U7)

Dott.ssa Irene Torrini
Postdoctoral Researcher in Economics at Bocconi University

Forgotten in the hospital: The effect of municipal social spending on hospital-related outcomes of the elderly

Recently published statistics show that 50% of patients over 70 are discharged from the hospital 7 days later, due to lack of social support after hospitalization. Despite this alarming evidence, social care remains largely underfunded and the interdependency between the social and hospital systems unquantified.
In this study, we merge admission- and municipality-level national data and use a two-stage econometric approach to estimate the effect of municipal social spending on hospital-related outcomes for elderly patients. The hypothesis we test is that hospital care is a substitute for poor social services.
The main findings show that a higher level of social spending reduces the number of hospitalizations, as well as the length of stay and cost per admission. These results call for urgent policy interventions to increase post-discharge social support for the elderly and increase coordination among different areas of care.

19/12/2024 h 10.30 in Aula De Lillo (II piano Edificio U7)

Prof.ssa Elena Colicino, Associate Professor, Department of Environmental Medicine and Public Health, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York

Pregnancy as critical window of exposure for maternal and child health

Environmental exposures have been shown to adversely impact the health of both women and children. Despite this understanding, the full extent of pregnancy-related exposures and their long-term health consequences remain underexplored. These exposures, ranging from air pollutants and essential and toxic chemicals, can have profound implications not only during the prenatal period but also for years after birth/delivery. This seminar aims to show the current methods used to assess these associations, providing insight into how these exposures are measured and evaluated through cutting-edge technologies and longitudinal study designs. In addition, it will outline future research directions, highlighting the importance of interdisciplinary approaches and the need for innovative strategies to better understand the complex interactions between environmental factors and long-term health outcomes for both mothers and children.